Metal Coat
by Giratina
Summary: As punishment for messing with the universe, a certain someone was banished to the Pokemon world as a Magneton for ten years. Time is up, and a Legendary with some personal scores to settle shows her true colors - a mix of pink, blue, and blood red.
1. Looks Are Decieving

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Pokemon, nor any of the Pokemon themselves. I did think up Caro and Kris, though.

A low buzzing sound filled the labyrinthine passageways and echoed off of the brown rock walls. This slight annoyance seemed innocent enough, being that one of the travelers in such a cave happens to be a Magneton, but a Raichu traveling with him sees things quite a bit differently...

"Holy Arceus! Helio, shut off that buzzing! It's getting on my nerves!"

"I can't help it. I am a Magneton, in case you hadn't noticed. It is something that I just do."

"Well, turn it off!"

"I can't."

"Why?"

"..."

"Ha! No comment. I beat you!"

"But, still." Helio replied. "The natural buzzing I emit is nothing like what happens to you when a female Pokemon walks by. Your eyes start to get glazed over, you drop whatever you're holding, little electric sparks start emitting everywhere from you, you start speaking gibberish...I don't know if you should be talking."

Caro crossed his arms. "Well...at least I-"

"Both of you, stop arguing! You'll wake up every Pokemon in this entire place."

Kris scolded her two friends, paws crossed across her cream-furred chest. She was a female Persian who had developed the intriguing ability to navigate on her hind legs. Other than the fact that she ran a bit faster than a standard Persian, and she could reach higher and had greater ability to hold things, this... unique aspect of the feline Pokemon honestly wasn't all that helpful. The blue gem on her head – yes, Kris' gem was blue, not red as it is on your standard everyday Persian– glinted and shined from the light and slight static her two friends made.

Caro, the Raichu, wasn't all too thrilled about the concept of his friend – friend, not girlfriend, that would be gross - ordering him around. "Hey! Who are you to order us about?! You're hardly older than we are!" Helio, the Magneton Caro had mentioned earlier, lost his balance and stumbled for a second, but then regained control and moved on.

"Anyway..." Kris said with a little bit of a loud tone to get past the voices of the two Electric Pokemon – well, Caro, anyway, Helio never seemed o raise his voice often - doing her best to forget about how much her two friends squabbled and trying to change the subject to something a bit more interesting, "We need to keep going, you two. The Treasure is probably just ahe-"

"What is this treasure?" Caro cut in, a bit annoyed. "You've been talking about it the whole time we've been in this stupid mountain, but we have absolutely no idea what 'it' is! You're always like this, Kris... Dragging us into things without telling us the whole story. So please, for the sake of sanity, tell us what the heck you are talking about."

The Persian rolled her eyes and snorted loudly. "Well if you want to know about it, fine. We're searching for the Dimension Key, a-"

"An ancient artifact said to be able to grant any wish its wielder commands. Correct?" Helio cut in yet again, stopping and turning o the cream-colored cat Pokemon who was standing in between himself and Caro.

"Well, yeah, but I wanted to say it!" Kris glared at her mechanical friend for a second. "What, were you trying to impress me or something?" Caro joked immaturely. "No! I just...wanted to." Kris argued back, raising her snout higher into the air, determined to ignore Caro. "Ooh, stop arguing! You'll wake up every Pokemon in this entire place!" Caro taunted, complete with Kris' Persian ears imitation. The taller cat Pokemon whacked him on the side of the head with a clenched paw and went to catch up with Helio, who had moved ahead.

Quickly running past him, Kris squealed with delight.

"H-hey...there it is! The Dimension Key!"

"You mean it really exists?" Caro gasped. Kris pointed to the center of the room, where a shiny black rock was sitting on a small pillar, about as tall as a couple of Pikachus standing on each others head, with moonlight coming down from a crack in the roof and just being sucked in, seeming to be never to be seen again. "I'm gonna get it first!" Kris taunted at Caro, and then lunged for the Key. "No, I am!" Caro fought back. Helio inspected the key from where he was hovering for a few seconds, and then his pupils grew smaller as a sinking feeling flooded over him. "No!" He shouted. "Don't touch that! That's not the Treasure, It's the Galaxy-"

Helio didn't have time to finish his sentence. As he moved forward, a bright light flowed out from where Kris and Caro had touched it, at the same time. "Oh no…" Helio muttered as the light became brighter, eventually forcing the three adventurers to close their eyes.

High above, a bright light blasted out of the huge mountain next to Treasure Town, shooting up straight into the heavens and probably outer space, too.

"Ha ha ha!" an old Alakazam chortled. "Looks like some more Pokemon got tricked by that stone!"

"Do you think we should take it out?" The Alakazam's wife mused as she stepped out of the house, next to her husband. "It seems like a bit of a mean trick..." "No!" The old Alakazam shook his head. "They were destined to go there, otherwise they wouldn't have made it that far. The Wild Pokemon would have probably defeated them by the time they got to the second chamber. It will be fun to see how they've changed if they return! Ha ha ha…"

"-Key." Helio finished, that sinking feeling in his stomach getting worse by the second. Yes, a Magneton does have a stomach. They're made of metal, like the rest of their bodies.

"Ugh…I feel sick…" Caro moaned. He hadn't opened his eyes yet. "What happened? We touched the Dimension Key and then…"

"That wasn't the Dimension Key." Helio said. "It was the Galaxy Key, said to have the power to teleport the wielder to whichever world he or she thinks about."

"But I wasn't thinking about…here!" Caro and Kris objected at the same time. They glared intensely at each other for a moment, but then Caro looked away. "Ha ha!" Kris taunted and smirked at Caro. "I got you! Score one for me! Now all you need is one point, He-" Kris stopped mid-sentence as she looked at her friend. She was about to open her mouth, when-

"BWAAAH!" Caro screamed. He looked down at himself – or, at least what he thought was himself. Instead of the sleek, streamlined, powerful body he had, there was a body that very vaguely resembled a Lucario's and Machop's in terms of anatomy. The tan-pink flesh on it was not hidden by any pelt, except for some pieces of a soft material on his torso and down to his legs, which also had no pelt covering the bare skin. He tried as hard as he could to lash his tail, but couldn't. Turning around, he saw that the reason he couldn't do such a thing is because he had no tail to lash! "H-h-human…? I'm a…Human?" he whimpered. Looking over at Kris, he saw the same thing with some slight differences, but he didn't much care about those.

She was wearing a different pelt than he was. He had on an orange pelt on his chest, with a design that looked a bit like his Raichu torso – a small comfort, but a comfort nonetheless. His bottom pelt was a bunch of blues mashed together into little fragments. The only fur he had was some brownish fur on the top of his head, which cascaded down his back and stopped with what he thought was called a 'Ponyta-tail' collecting it all. She, on the other hand, had a cream pelt over her torso, and white pelts covering her pants.

"Uh…" Kris muttered, trying out her new human paws, "from what I know about Humans, we seem to be in the age range that Humans classify as 'teenagers'. But you, Helio, look like what a Human classifies within the 'Adult' or 'grown-up' age range. Why is that?" She cocked her head, and yellowish hair flowed down her back, stopping near the bottom of her shoulder blades.

"So…Helio. Can I ask you something?"

"Yes."

"Why do we look like this…and you look like _that?_"


	2. Ignore the Man in the Familiar Jacket

DISCLAIMER ZOMG: I don't own Pokemon, or any of the characters except Caro and Kris, who I made up. K? K.

BEGIN Chapter Two;

Caro's confusion was not at all uncalled for. For, you see, Helio didn't look much like his companions at all...

He was taller than the two teenagers looking at him, about six feet, give or take; a full foot taller than his traveling companions. He was also paler than they were, and obviously at least ten years older, if not more.

In fact, just about every visible part of him was different than those of Caro and Kris; his hair was not nearly as long as theirs, but was shorter, spikier, and a somewhat unnatural shade of blue; steel blue or something along those lines was what seemed to come to mind. His eyes were also slightly narrower than theirs were, but Caro wasn't totally sure if he was doing this on purpose or if it was just a natural thing. His eyes were a rather odd gray color that seemed to look right through you sometimes, and other times were just there, not looking like they did anything.

The pelt on his torso was all white, though it was a bit hard to tell because there was a much more interesting gray one above it, with a medium-sized strip down the middle. This was all fine and good, but the thing that really made it set out was the unusual design. Two thick yellow lines seemed to be going around the gray pelt near where it ended, and a rather odd-shaped charcoal patch lay under the lines, in a pattern that is rather difficult to describe with words alone, and was by no means possible on paper to Caro and Kris' knowledge. The parts of the pelt that went down his arms were also black, as was the longer pelt going down his legs.

However, the most important thing of all was also the smallest and arguably the least noticeable; a yellow image that seemed to resemble the Unown rune G was in plain sight on the upper right side of his gray pelt, over near the sleeve.

By now, you have probably figured out from the description who Helio was in his human form, if not even earlier.

"Yeah...funny story." Cyrus muttered.

"Story? I want to hear it." Kris quickly got up from her sitting position. She was a bit wobbly at first and lost her balance a few times, but soon got used to it due to the practice she had in her former Persian form. "R-right, me too." Caro, on the other hand, was having a bit more difficulty stabilizing himself, but with Cyrus and Kris' aid he got it down, sooner or later.

Cyrus turned and looked down at the two children who used to be his only allies – he wouldn't call them friends, but allies seemed suitable - in the dimension where he had been imprisoned in for the last... ten years or so, was it? His human body didn't seem to age during the period he was a Magneton, so it wasn't so easy to tell.

"Well...I don't exactly know all the details just yet." Cyrus looked up at the sky for a moment, and then brought his gaze down again. "Maybe I did, and Uxie wiped my memory. I'm not sure." He paused for a second, before continuing on. "I...have dome some things I can't say have been very helpful in my life." He folded his arms and leaned against a lamppost, looking up into the now darkening sky, Skorupius and Draconair shining brightly. "Most people have. They had stolen something, or told a lie, or something along those lines. I did...something much more complicated." Caro and Kris listened, attention unwavering, as they learned the previous – and incredibly unexpected - human life of their best friend. They were fine with referring to him as a friend, even though they had only known him for six or seven months. (You see, time flows differently in Caro and Kris' home universe. What was two years there could have been 25 here.)

After he had finished, Kris was silent, but Caro had a question, as usual. "So...how did you know about the Galaxy and Dimensional Keys?" Cyrus hesitated for a moment, and then replied in the standard monotone. "While doing research work on the Red Chain, the Galaxy and Dimensional Keys were both listed as required items in quite a few of my...resources. I couldn't find them anywhere. So I think you can imagine my reaction when one of the two things that had doomed my plan to fail was sitting in front of me on a little stone pillar in some mountain in an alternate universe, with moonlight being sucked into it."

Cyrus was silent after that. He quite clearly wasn't planning on saying anything more. "So...what do we do now?" Caro asked, looking around, then cocked his head to one side. Kris seemed to have gotten over the fact that her best friend had once tried to destroy and recreate the human universe, but was still shaking a little bit. "I honestly don't know." Cyrus looked around, gaze sweeping over the marshy landscape, not noticing anything in particular except the expanse of mud.

"Y-you said you came from Sunyshore City, didn't you? So let's go there. You must be pretty eager to see your hometown after seeing nothing but talking Pokemon for what, nine, ten years?" Kris pointed out, still a bit shakily. She didn't completely understand the different places' timeflow yet. After all, they had only been here for one human-time day.

Nobody seemed to have had a better idea, so Cyrus removed a Pokeball from his pocket. He tossed it into the air, and it opened, spreading the red light into shape of a Honchkrow, much to Caro and Kris' surprise and slight horror. Not a very happy Honchkrow, but a Honchkrow still. It squawked angrily at its owner, and then snatched the Pokeball from his hand and violently and angrily crushed it in two. Having broken the seal binding it to the person who hadn't done anything Pokemon care-related to it in nine or ten years, the Honchkrow flew off into the night, heading in the general direction of what Cyrus could only assume to be Eterna Forest.

"Well, so much for air transportation." Cyrus said blankly. "If we're planning to go anywhere, it looks like we'll be doing it on foot."

"Well, then, let's go!" Kris chirped, and immediately set off in a random direction. Caro sighed and put his hand on his forehead, and then glanced at his hand; he wasn't quite used to this 'Human' concept yet. "Do you even know how to _get _to Sunyshore City?" He asked with a told-you-so tone, purposefully trying to provoke Kris. "Well, do you?" Kris turned around and huffed back, and turned to Cyrus – but he was already walking in the direction opposite of where Honchkrow had flew off in a very Honchkrowlike rage, probably to find itself some minions. Minions, it felt, were long overdue.

"Woah – hey, wait up!" Caro and Kris dashed after their friend, who had longer legs and thus was going much faster than they were, even though he was moving at a slower pace and had to dodge around the expanse of marshy mud. Caro was used to this speed difference, since he used to have stubby Raichu legs and could only get around anywhere near quickly on all four paws, but Kris wasn't – her muscular Persian body could have outraced him in Magneton form in an instant.

As Caro chased along behind his friend, he took a better look up at Cyrus, who didn't seem to be using much effort but was still going faster than they were. Was this Human really the same slightly creepy but lovable Magneton he had known just a few days ago? It didn't make any sense at all.

"Hey, where are you going?" Kris asked, panting slightly. "Sunyshore City?" Cyrus shook his head, but didn't turn around. "No." he said. "I am heading in that general direction, but I have a few stops to make first. We will be circling around Sinnoh, and when we get back to our starting point, here, that is when we will set off for Sunyshore City." And with that, he kept walking, checking back every once in a while to make sure Caro and Kris were still alive.

END Chapter Two.


	3. Trainers? We have to be Trainers?

About two seconds after this awkward interaction took place, the three felt a slight chill.

A couple seconds after that, they realized with a jolt where they were.

And then, reality set in with a generous helping of sheer cold.

Though they hadn't realized it, they had not been near Pastoria City as Cyrus had originally thought. Far from it. As it turns out, they were actually in the forest near Snowpoint City, Sinnoh's northern-most community, shivering violently from the cold, snow-covered mountain below their feet. The Pastorian landscape had just been an illusion caused by a particularly troublesome Medicham lurking nearby, snickering its little heart out.

As Cyrus shot a quick glance at the human-like Psychic and Fighting-type, he remembered something Caro and Kris would definitely need to get done. "Now. I don't mean to sound like Professor What's-his-tree, but you two are in a far more dangerous place than you were previously, without any self-protection at all. Both of you are going to need to find yourself some Pokemon, and register as Trainers."

"Wh-what?!" Caro and Kris shouted together, and then gazed up at him, eyes wide with horror. "So...you mean...we have to catch Pokemon in those...things?" Caro whimpered, remembering Medicham's vision of the Honchkrow violently crushing its Pokeball and flying off into the twilight.

"That's the general idea, yes." Cyrus paused, and continued in the still-typical monotone. "Of course, you two need to decide. Would you rather wander around with no self-defense, or have an unbelievably powerful defense mechanism and ally at your disposal?" He looked down at them, waiting for an answer with another, as usual blank, face. "I, for one...well...I'm going to do it." Caro raised his hand, still shivering. "It would help me look at Pokemon in a whole new way. And besides, if we ever get back to Treasure Town, we would have some new recruits..." He nodded his head. "So yeah."

"Ah, what the heck. It'll be nice to have a pastime in this ridiculously insane alternate uni- oh, sorry. No offense, Helio." Kris stopped her sentence short, totally forgetting that the ridiculously insane alternate universe she was insulting and currently residing in was his home world.

"None taken." Cyrus blinked once, and then turned. "You two, come with me. I can go with you as far as the city limits, but past that I can't risk being recognized. That would be...more trouble than it's worth." Caro grimaced slightly as he spoke. Casually walking into a new place without their only guide would be a slight issue. "It's not a problem." Cyrus continued. "Find the white building with the red roof, go in, and ask the human behind the counter if you could sign up as Trainers." They nodded at the same time, and set off, seeing as the three were now lurking in the shadows of the snow-covered trees near the city. "Go."

They quickened their pace as Cyrus slunk farther into the snow-coated shadows, using his years of (childhood) experience of generally being invisible to hide from passerby.

"Whoaaaa." Caro muttered under his breath as they looked around at the snowy town, and the huge temple near the back in particular. "Place with the red roof, that's what Helio said." Kris pointed out, snapping him out of the trance. "Over there. Let's go." She tugged on his arm, and set off at a brisk – or, at least as close to brisk as you could get in knee-high frozen water droplets - pace, trudging through the deep snow.

Finally, they arrived at the huge white building, and cautiously stepped in. Kris raised an eyebrow – this place was amazing. And big. There was a clear, unblocked pathway down the aisle to the human at a desk near the other end, but there were long, cushiony couches stretched along the sides of the aisle. There were also smaller couches nearer the wall, as well as a café in the corner. While she was gazing at the Pokemon Center in all of it's splendor and pink-and-yellow glory, Caro was already chatting with the pink-haired woman behind he counter near the back. She quickly dashed over to him in case he tried to do or say anything _too _stupid.

"Yes, both of us want to be Trainers. No, we're not on some far-fetched quest from Professor Lucas. Yes, we are over ten years old. Yes, we're not from here. No, we don't have any Pokemon at this time." Caro was answering questions as the appalled receptionist woman shot them out. The Joy was surprised – she usually used her rapidfire questions as a way of filtering out the Trainers destined to fail. Only one other person had done them this quickly and accurately, back when she was working in the far east part of the region...

The woman shrugged and pressed some keys on the computer, and then nodded. She directed them over to near a Pokeball camera, which took their pictures, much to their amazement; "What, it's like you've never seen a camera before! Ah, you were foreigners, I forgot..." And with that, she handed them both a card and some money. "Okay, you two. Good luck on your adventure!" Her beaming smile turned to a frown as some boy rushed in the door, cradling a Monferno in his arms. So that was why the pathway up here wasn't blocked. Not paying much attention to Caro, the boy nearly plowed him over in his rush to get to the Nurse. "Hey! Watch where you're swinging that Monferno next time!" Caro hissed. "Should we get back to Helio now? It must have been at least an hour by now..." he mused, brushing himself off. "Yeah, I think so." With that, Kris and Caro left the warm, compelling Pokemon Center back into Nature's unforgiving cold spell of a town.

Seeing Kris and Caro approaching, Cyrus put the two Ultra Balls back into his pocket and nodded when they approached. "You were taking a while, so I decided to catch you some starters. It would make things a lot easier later on." He removed the Balls from his pocket again, and tossed them to the two Pokemon-turned-teenagers. Staggered, they sent the new Pokemon out.

On the left, in front of Kris, stood a vaguely human Pokemon, about a foot shorter than she was. There was a magneta-colored circle on the Pokemon's head, sporting three smaller oval-shaped appendages out of it; one on each side, and one out the back. Its arms were long and slender, and its legs were covered by a large mass of magenta-pinkish skin, for isolation or decoration Kris didn't know. Its lips seemed to be slightly larger than normal.

"Yo! Nice to meetcha!" It chirped, and then bowed to its new mistress. "Yeah, nice to meet you too, Medicham." Kris nodded back a bit absentmindedly, turning the Ultra Ball over in her hand.

Caro chuckled as his Pokemon was sent out, on the right. There was a slightly rodent-like Pokemon smirking there on its hind legs, long, bright white claws shining in the moonlight. It was mostly black, save its eyes, a few golden rectangular shapes on its forehead and torso, and a large red featherlike thing growing out of...its ear? No, that feather thing was its ear, just shaped different than the other, which was more catlike. As a cold wind blew, Caro noticed there were three more red feathered thingies making up its tail.

"Hmph. So you're the guy I'm serving for the rest of my life...sweet." The Pokemon cackled as it flexed its claws at its new owner, red eyes shining brightly, eager to size this kid up.

"Hey, wait a minute! Can't humans not understand Pokemon?" Kris objected, confused. "Usually, you would be correct. But in our case, where we have all lived a percentage of our lives as Pokemon, we must have retained the ability to communicate with Pokemon from our previous...forms." Cyrus replied. Kris nodded. "O-kaay..."

"Well, now that you all have introduced yourselves, let's keep moving." Cyrus turned and moved towards Lake Acuity. The other four turned and ran beside him, eager to warm up.

Uxie smiled, eyes completely closed.

The three travelers were coming, along with some Pokemon natives. Oh, what a joyous reunion this would be... waving farewell to his sisters, the Legendary Sprite Fairy Levitating Blob Thing of Knowledge teleported down to Earth with a flashy light show to be positioned in a dark corner of his cave in the middle of Lake Acuity, laughing to itself all the way down.

Uxie couldn't wait to sense his old friend's feelings when he came into his domain. That would be fun.


	4. Uxie

Finally, after what seemed to be hours of trudging through deep snow, the three adventurers – for the Pokemon had been returned to their Balls – finally stopped in front of the opening in the trees known as the entrance to the Acuity Lakefront. Caro stared at the entrance for a while, then shrugged and barged right in. Kris shook her head and followed, tailed finally by Cyrus, who didn't seem to be cold at all.

You really couldn't see it in the dark corner of the cavern, but Uxie felt like he was just about at his bursting point from silent laughter. He clammed up immediately when the crash of a Gyarados splashing into the water blasted from outside, echoing all around the cavern and really, really hurting Uxie's ears.

He bit his lip, trying to keep silent from the excitement and loud booming splash. Eventually, the splashing and flailing stopped, the stifled sound of something landing on the snow-covered rocks, and trudging through the thick white mass of snow.

The three were coming.

Kris, Caro, and Cyrus had made it to the center of the landmass, where an opening in the rocks loomed above them. "And here we have it," said Caro sarcastically, "an old cave. Now what did you need to do here again?" He turned to Cyrus with a cocked eyebrow. Cyrus gave no response, but walked into the darkened rock cavern anyway.

A few minutes pass. And then a few more. Silence.

Unless Uxie wasn't here, there should have been some reaction by now. Right?

"There's nothing here! Let's go." Caro impatiently commented as he turned to leave. Kris shot one last look at the cave and turned to depart, but stopped when she noticed Cyrus wasn't following. "Why are you still here?" She asked. "It's deserted. Whatever you were looking for isn't here."

Cyrus stood there for a few more minutes, and finally accepted the fact that the cave really was deserted. As he turned to leave, though, a few flickers of light swirled around one point in the center of a large puddle, hovering a few feet above it for a few seconds, before materializing with a little _whoosh_.

"Hello again." Uxie smiled warmly. "Been a while. Ten years, in fact. Exactly ten as of yesterday. Did you know that?" Uxie crossed his arms. Cyrus, Kris, and Caro stopped in their tracks and turned around, the latter two with surprised expressions on their faces.

"U-Uxie?" Kris took a step back. "Uxie." Cyrus confirmed. "What do you want?" He turned to the floating blue-and-yellow blob that was the Knowledge Pokemon.

"Nothing much, actually. I just came to check in on you to make sure that you don't get in to any more...trouble." He hovered up to get face-to-face with the tall human male, and poked him squarely in the middle of his forehead, smiling. Cyrus was unfazed.

"What do you want?" He asked again. "I already told you, dimwit." Uxie said with a laugh. Cyrus really didn't appreciate being called a dimwit, but he didn't show it – and even if he had, Uxie wouldn't have stopped anyway.

"I'm just here to check on you. Oh yeah, and keep an eye out for Mesprit. She's gotten pretty riled up since...you two last met." Uxie cocked an eyebrow, and Caro did the same. "You met Mesprit? And Uxie? And what about Azelf?" He asked.

"All three of them, yes." Cyrus nodded. "Just...not in the way you expect. Anyway, it looks like we're done here." As Uxie seemed to have no objection, he glanced around the dark cave once more, and then turned around. He walked right past his friends, beckoning for them to follow.

"Oh yeah." Caro nodded, remembering the story Cyrus had spilled earlier on, in Snowpoint.

"I'll remember that. You two, we need to get through Mt. Coronet." Stepping out of the cave, a Gyarados roared. A few swishing noises, and silence descended once again over the freezing lake.

"Wait a second." Kris pointed out, once they had landed back on the snow-covered mainland. "Why should we need to go through some big mountain if we can just use your Gyarados?" Cyrus blinked. He had forgotten for a moment that there were different laws of Water Pokemon mobility in Treasure Town.

"No." He replied. "Where we are, Water Pokemon do not have the ability to go much farther than a few inches off the ground. We do, however, have Honchkrow, since the little escapade it threw happened in some Medicham's prank." To prove his point, he jammed one hand into his pocket and pulled out a red-and-white sphere.

Caro and Kris both cringed. They weren't yet completely used to the concept of storing Pokemon in those...things, but they would just have to deal with it. Oh well.

Cyrus tossed the ball into the air, and a Honchkrow looked back at him, chirping happily. For, time was distorted in these Pokeballs, so the Pokemon inside learned to not trust their sense of time while in the Arceus-forsaken things.

"'Ello there! What's up with you? Been a while, hasn't it?" Cyrus just now remembered how much his Honchkrow seemed to talk, and made a silent oath to never attempt conversation with it again. "Yes, it has. Fly along Mt. Coronet with the three of us – if you can't handle three, we'll get some Golbats – and head for Eterna City."

Honchkrow, needless to say, was stunned. As far as he knew, humans couldn't understand what he said. "How did you...when did you...how d'you understand me?" Cyrus blinked. "Time goes faster outside a Ball. Now, can you carry one adult and two teenagers?" Honchkrow wasn't satisfied with his owner's answer, but the large bird Pokemon let it slide anyway. "Oh, no way. You would need Golbats for that, sorry!"

"Can't be helped. To the nearest Golbat nest, then." Kris shrugged, and turned to face the large mountain. "Finding a Golbat shouldn't be that hard, right?"

"More common than a Magikarp dealer." Cyrus started towards a large opening in the wall and poked his head in. Honchkrow did the same. "Yep! There's millions of the things. I'll leave the rest to you two, mmkay?" Honchkrow turned to Caro and Kris. "They're your Golbats, after all."

Cyrus tossed some Great Balls over his shoulder. Caro and Kris caught them, still a bit surprised. "Attack the Pokemon until it obtains a red Aura emanating around it, and when that happens, toss the Pokeball and hope for the best." Cyrus stood to the right of the gap in the rocks to give the two teenage children access to the cave.

"Look! Red aura! Like Helio said – these guys must have been recovering from an attack by another...what are Golbats in again? Colonies? Eh, what the heck. Catch one!" Kris chirped.

"All right!" Caro laughed. He tossed a Great Ball into the mob of glowing red light. Kris did the same. A few screeches and thunk noises later, two red spheres fell to the floor of the cave, shaking at first. Slowly but surely, they stopped quivering and lay there, solitary.

And then they abruptly flew into their owners' faces with all swiftness. "OW!" Caro shouted.

"Maybe we should send them out." Kris shrugged, still massaging her head from a metal ball hitting her square in the forehead, much as Uxie's tiny fist had done a little while before. "Yeah, I guess we should." Caro whimpered, doing the same thing. With the hand they were not currently using for massaging their heads, the two teenagers flung the balls into the air...


	5. The Rebellion of Mesprit

High, high above the region of Sinnoh, there stood a staircase composed of fragments of light. Should a human ascend up this staircase – which they could not, for it was composed of fragments of light, which humans cannot climb – he would be greeted with a large tunnel shimmering with crystals inserted into the rock. Should a human walk down this tunnel – which they could not, for the light would surely blind them, even if they closed their eyes – they would be greeted with very big marble doors. Should the human open the doors – which they could not, for the doors were incredibly heavy – they would behold an amazing sight indeed – the Spear Pillar as it was before it was cracked, broken and destroyed, columns of shimmering crystal, a floor smooth and shiny and cold as ice, and, most of all, a Pokemon researcher's dream; a huge room filled to the brim with Legends.

Of course, the Legendaries had put all of these human-stopping traps in place to stop them from trespassing and hence saving them from the possibility of having their minds wiped at the absolute least.

At the back wall of this enormous, sparkly, brilliant room, there was the Origin.

The Origin was a luminous white creature that resembled a Rapidash ever so slightly in terms of anatomy – four long, powerful legs, a fairly long neck, and a somewhat similar body shape. But this was no Rapidash – it's head, instead of having a long muzzle, had what looked like some sort of horned helmet shape on its head, cutting out a piece for the eyes and rest of the face, then closing it again and merging the helmet piece with the rest of the body, also a luminous white.

Instead of hooves, it had yellow arrow-shaped patterns coming up from its pointed feet. There were what seemed to be yellow rings protruding from behind it, though on a side view you would see that the yellow rings were actually another part of the body. White, wispy things flowed from the back of it's head and around its hoof area.

_This_ was the Origin. Arceus.

There were countless other brilliant forms in this spiffy white room, though to describe them all could fill an impressively-sized book by itself. So I shall continue to call the Legendaries by name, and you will need to either look them up on the Nets of Inter or find them in some sort of guidebook, should such a miraculous thing exist, of course.

Suddenly, the huge marble doors slammed open. Mesprit was standing there, paw extended, gritting her teeth, eyes filled with rage.

"How could you?" She spat at everyone in the room, looking around, eyes shooting daggers and laser beams.

"I cannot say I know what you're talking about." Uxie said calmly, glancing at his sister, eyes half-open.

"What I'm talking about? WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT?!" Mesprit shouted. "YOU let him pass! You had a little chat and let him pass! YOU LET HIM! Yeah, you know who I'm talking about! YES! The useless Magikarp with the Links! YEAH, HIM! Mister what's-his-planet!"

"Cyrus." Uxie pointed out calmly.

"YEAH! HIM!" Mesprit roared.

Dialga, Palkia, and Giratina turned to Mesprit. "Hush up, for Arceus' sake." Giratina growled. You would imagine Arceus would take offense to this, but he did not take any at all and allowed the others to use the term. "You know what happened. We gave him his punishment, he survived it, he's going to face the consequences, and now he is no more malicious than a newborn Riolu."

Mesprit snorted. "Oh, yeah. That puny little vacation? We should have gone with Darkrai's suggestion!"

"Well, finally." Darkrai rolled his eyes, one covered by the white wisp protruding from his black head. "See, Arceus? Both Mesprit and I think he should have been destroyed. It would have been so much easier that way!" He put his arms behind his head, and leaned back in the chair-like structure he was sitting on, wispy shadows at the bottom of his body turning into Blaziken-like black legs with shadows swirling around near the bottom.

"No, it would not." Suicune blinked, and when his eyes opened again, they were glowing white. He spoke in a very deep voice unlike his own. For, you see, Arceus did not speak; he roared, he growled, he snorted, but he did not speak. He would manipulate one of the other Legendaries and speak that way. That's just one of the things Arceus does; nobody questions it and it poses no problems so nobody really cares.

"For if we had destroyed him as you suggested, he would have been reborn, in a form with the potential to be much, much, _much, _worse, if such a thing was possible for a human." Suicune spoke in the deep voice, and when he blinked again, his eyes were back to their regular luminance.

"Ha!" Mesprit spat, now overflowing with rage. "Well, you know, if you all are going to just ignore this...this...this TRAITOR's actions-" She pointed a finger at Uxie, who raised an eye a bit higher- "Well, then, Darkrai and I will stop him and his Pokemon underlings ourselves." She began to hover back out, and then noticed Darkrai was not following. "DARKRAI! You're supposed to be coming with ME! THIS WAY!"

Darkrai shook his head. "Nuh-uh, miss. No can do. Sure, I want the stupid guy gone, but I'm not gonna go against the most powerful forces known to anything at all to do so. You're on your own this time. Bye, now. Don't come again." And with a flick of his finger, the door pulsed with dark energy and slammed in Mesprit's twisted face.

"YOU WILL...YOU WILL ALL..."

"YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!" With a final slam and kick on the door, Mesprit was gone, off in a blind rage to do whatever she could to stop Link man in his tracks. Grinning wickedly, she shot down the corridor, around the stairs, and down to the scene of the original rime – the Spear Pillar as it is right now. Floating over to a hollow pillar, she dived down. At the bottom, light was pouring in from Mesprit's luminescent jewel on her forehead. Glancing around for a second, she finally found what she was looking for.

She flew out of the pillar, down Mt. Coronet, and off to the tiny Town of Twinleaf, clutching pieces of a broken, blood-red chain for dear life.

One certain piece of this chain fell out of her grasp without her noticing in her blind rage, and flew down into a crumbled ruin near or in Eterna City...


	6. Arcanine Post

As the two red-and-white metal spheres flew through the air, all three pairs of eyes focused on them. Time seemed to slow itself down. Nobody actually knew why – it wasn't anything terribly important, Caro and Kris were just sending out a couple of Golbat – but it still did nonetheless.

Everyone was silent as the Pokéballs made an indent in the snowy ground with a soft _thump_. They then began to open and released a red, swirling, luminescent energy into the air, which soon took the form of two Pokemon.

One was a large blue thing, with a gaping mouth that opened almost as big as it's body; Small, beady eyes glanced around. Purple bat-like wings with blue edging beat in the air, sending drafts of wind down to the snowy mass below. It let out a piercing screech, which everyone translated to mean, "Oww...my wing hurts..."

The other did not have a giant gaping mouth like the first, but was rather a purple, footless blob with two sets of streamlined wings. The upper set of wings had purple edging and blue membrane inside, instead of the other way around. The lower set was entirely purple. Its mouth was twisted into what seemed to be a deformed frown. "What?" It rumbled in a hiss-like whisper.

Caro blinked. "Wh... Why does she get a Crobat?" He glared over in Kris' direction, who was now in conversation with her newfound friend. "Huh..." He muttered, and turned to his Golbat. "Oh, hey. What's wrong with your wing? Did I hit it too hard or something?" He stepped up to the large bat Pokémon.

"But...humans can't understand Pokémon..." The Golbat muttered, staring at the teenager with curiosity. "Yeah, well... I'll let you in on something. I used to be a Raichu and I'm from a different universe, and- Yeow!" Caro looked down to see that Cyrus had slammed down on his foot. "What was that for?!" He whined, glaring up at the taller male.

"I don't know if it's such a great idea to go off telling your life's story to a Golbat, who could very well sneak off in the dead of night while you're asleep and babble to the whole world, do you?" He asked blankly. "Uh... oh yeah... I knew that!" Unfortunately, Caro was not a very good liar.

Cyrus kept his legs in a squatted position, to make flying easier for Honchkrow. All Caro and Kris needed to do was hold on, but a flat disk with wings has a much different method of flight than a large bird does. (Yeah, yeah. I know. A Honchkrow isn't _large, _but how would a six-foot-tall man get around on a three-foot-tall bird? I tend to make things taller than they should be, but eh. Maybe it's because I'm unnaturally tall too?)

"You okay up there?" Honchkrow called. "Yes." Came his master's blank response. At least they were at a high enough altitude nobody could see anything but a Honchkrow, a Crobat, and a Golbat having a pleasant flight...

Glancing back, Cyrus saw that Kris seemed to be holding on to the Crobat's head, which the ridee didn't seem to mind that much. Caro was having a bit of an easier time, though, as he had the Golbat's feet to hold on to.

_How did this...happen? _No matter how many times Cyrus had tried to ignore – and eliminate - that thought over the past few days, it just wouldn't die. He knew exactly how it happened, of course. After what happened at the Pillar, he had slunk off into a side cavern. The police force didn't want anyone to know he was still out there, and he wasn't showing any rebellion, so they kept their mouth shut and he did too.

Of course, he couldn't hide from everyone. Or, rather, everything.

He remembered the scene vividly; it was hard not to. After all, it was only an ancient messenger for the higher powers in the universe sending him an invite to a divine trial up above the Spear Pillar, nothing big...

Mt. Coronet had so many useful little passages. It was quite an aid when you were being tailed by a couple of women in blue suits and a 'detective' who could not be bothered to do any detective work at all.

_With every step, Cyrus progressed farther and farther away from his failed... experiment. He couldn't call it a dream – a dream is the product of hope, the second weakest of all emotions. The first, of course, was love... but trivial things like that hardly mattered right now. What really mattered was that he get as far away from the idiots back at the Pillar as possible, and not be caught by any of them._

_He wasn't caught by the police. _

_He was caught by something much, much worse._

_The Arcanine watched with glowing eyes – literally glowing, as they were emitting a brilliant white light – as he put one silent paw in front of the other, making sure not to make his presence known to the Human he was pursuing. That was one of the most important parts of the mission – to keep himself a secret until he felt the time was right to reveal himself._

_He glanced down at the paper in his jaws. It was in Unown runes, so he wasn't sure if his target would even understand what it said. But the runes these people used were unknown to the Pokemon, so hopefully Unown is one of their understood languages. This target was a smart one, anyway._

_Finally, the target had stopped. This was his chance. Pawstep by pawstep, the glowing-eyed Arcanine quickened its pace. The target didn't need to think he wasn't there anymore; that wasn't important anymore. What was important was that he got his invitation and accepted._

_The large orange-and-cream dog Pokemon soon caught up. He didn't go unnoticed – as soon as the target noticed something was behind him, he turned around and blasted the Arcanine with a blank but extremely creepy stare. The Pokemon shook this off, and then walked up to his target. Dropping the letter at his feet, the Arcanine walked back a few paces and sat down, waiting for an answer._

"_Well," The target said. "It seems your owner isn't capable of using proper English. This is all in Unown runes...hmm. You Legends certainly do have fast postal service, don't you?" He put the letter into his pocket, and stared the dog in the eye. "Fine."_

_Happy that the objective had been completed, the Arcanine blinked._

_When they opened, the bright white glow in its eyes had disappeared._

The startled caw of his Pokemon brought him back into the present.

"Swellow at twelve o'clock! I repeat! Swellow at twelve o'clock! And... It's got a rider! Swellow with rider at twelve o'clock...!"


	7. Suspicious Glances Abound

Cyrus racked his brain for any possible way he could get out of this without either A: being seen by the kid or B: getting he, Honchkrow, and quite possibly even Caro and Kris as well as their Pokemon killed. At this point in time, it was difficult to tell which one was worse.

"Swerve down." He commanded, ducking in closer to the Honchkrow. Honchkrow nodded, and took a dive down into a cloud. Big mistake. When they soared back out, both were shivering and Honchkrow's wings had a little bit of frost on them. As if that wasn't bad enough, the Swellow kid had quite obviously seen him.

"Hey!" The kid said, eyes widened. "You're that gu-"

"No, I'm not. Now, forget you ever met me and go on with your normal life. It is, to be honest, a life-or-death situation for some of us." Cyrus cut in. Honchkrow stopped in front of the Swellow kid for a second, then resumed his previous speed.

"No way..." The girl muttered. "Duskwing, turn around and use Peck on that Honchkrow!"

"What?!" Honchkrow squawked. Cyrus clenched his teeth. If this kid was going to get offensive, he would be forced to do the same. Squawking angrily, the Swellow started making a beeline for Honchkrow, who took a nosedive.

"Night Slash." Cyrus commanded softly, doing his best not to open his mouth for too long.

Making a quick midair loop, Honchkrow spun around and concentrated all of the dark energy he could muster into his right wing.

"Okay..." He muttered as the dark energy began to make the wing glow, "Swellow! Taste my Night Slash!"

With that, he flew right past the Swellow, jutting out the wing practically dripping with dark energy to strike the Swellow on the stomach. The large bird shouted in surprise and pain, and wavered for a bit. Regaining control, the Swellow swung its wing in a broad arc. Air Slash!

Honchkrow flapped frantically to keep the thermals under its wings under control. "Whoa, now! Don't get too cocky!" It threatened, beginning to get worried. Looping back around, it went in for a Dark Pulse, stopping completely after the appropriate amount of malevolent thoughts had been brought out of its equally malevolent head. The solid thoughts soared towards the Swellow, who tried to fight them off to no avail.

"That's why you should never start a midair battle." Cyrus instructed calmly. "If your Pokemon faints, then you go plummeting towards the ground..." He watched as the two figures dropped like stones, screaming all the while. "Like so." Cyrus flung a Max Potion down after them in hopes of the girl catching and using it, and turned to go.

"Well, that was fun." Caro said sarcastically. "We didn't even get to do anything!"

"Be glad she didn't attack you. If you had lost, which you probably would have, you would be plummeting to the ground instead, forcing Kris or myself to rescue you." Cyrus said over his shoulder. Rolling his eyes, Caro flew off in pursuit, Kris right behind. "Hmph!"

"Let's land here." Honchkrow suggested. "If we get into some clearing in that forest, then there's a lesser chance of someone recognizing us than in a Pokemon Landing Area." Without waiting for a response, the Honchkrow went into a level descent. Instructing the bat Pokemon to do the same, Cyrus hopped off when they were a few feet from the ground and Honchkrow landed smoothly. The other two had a bit more trouble, but did it.

"Honchkrow." Cyrus turned to the bird Pokemon now preening itself.

"You are aware that you have just landed us near Jubilife City, one of the busiest places in Sinnoh?"

Honchkrow looked up for a second, analyzing what he had said, and groaned dramatically. "Aw, crud! Listen. I'm sorry about this, and I-" Honchkrow earned itself a bone-chilling glare, and shut its beak immediately.

"Well." Cyrus turned towards the south, the location of Jubilife City, and ultimately, Lake Verity.

"As Honchkrow has lead us to such an... inconvenient destination, I suppose we will just need to keep moving on foot... unless you have any objections." Cyrus turned back to Honchkrow, who shook his head hastily. "No. Nope! Not me! I'm perfectly fine with tha-" Honchkrow caught himself and stopped abruptly.

"No, sir. No objections." He squeaked. Cyrus returned Honchkrow, and Caro and Kris did the same after some confusion.

"Right. So...where do we go now?" Caro mused out loud. "Before we concern ourselves with that, I suggest we concentrate on keeping ourselves alive until we pass Jubilife City." Shrugging, Caro nodded.

"Yeah. Okay." He honestly had no idea what a 'Jubilife' was, but it seemed to be a community like Treasure Town.

"People know you again, right?" Kris turned to him. "I can only assume so. The city limits are where I leave you. Keep going straight down, until you reach the southernmost exit. Once you do, wait a few feet into the forest. Around dusk, I will find you." With that, he began to disappear into the trees, Caro and Kris trying to keep up behind him.

It was a silent trek to the city of Jubilife.

"Sort of stinks how he has to lurk around back in the woods, just because of something that happened, like, ten years ago..." Caro turned around to glance back at the entrance to the city, where they had been standing just a few minutes ago. Kris turned around and followed his gaze.

"I guess he asked for it. Nobody _forced _him to do all that."

"I guess you're right..." Caro muttered. "But we'd better get going. It's nearly dusk right about now, and Helio might be expecting us." Nodding, Kris turned to face the front too.

"Mhm." They continued on, observing the city sights and dodging clowns insisting they answer simple questions.

It was getting progressively darker, and Caro and Kris had nearly made it out of the place. Of course, there was one more thing in this city who wanted to smell- er, see them...

An excited, high-pitched squeak jarred Caro and Kris out of their thoughts. The clattering of sharp claws scrabbling around on stone could be heard. A few seconds later, a purple-and-white blur skidded around out of a side alley, and dashed towards the two teenagers.

"I don't believe it!" The shape chirped. "I don't, I don't, I don't! It's too good! I got him! I got him! Eeheehee! Listen up, Magneton! I got hi- oh."

Upon closer inspection, the shape was a large, four-legged thing with purple fur and a giant, poofy tail positioned in such a way that it stopped right above the creature's head, which was also purple. It had a large muzzle, and small purple ears poked out from under the tail. Small, squinted eyes turned from happiness to disappointment to embarrassment, in the span of a few moments.

"I...don't get it..." He muttered. Shaking his head wildly, the Skuntank said, "I must have mixed up his scent. It's been a while since I saw him..."

"Saw who?" Kris asked confusedly. The Skuntank jumped.

"What...? Uhh... Tank! Skun-tank! Tanktanktank!" Both could feel an anime sweatdrop on their heads. It felt weird, like it was just floating next to them and dampening their hair.

"Why are you saying your name?" Caro cocked an eyebrow.

"What's attracted you this time, Skuntank?" A metallic whirr sounded from the alley that Skuntank had emerged from. A Magnezone hovered a few feet above the ground. It was a large, oval-shaped metal Pokémon, with two black magnets jutting out at the front, their tips red and blue. A single red eye stared unblinkingly at them, and some huge screws near the back rotated slightly.

"I thought I found him... but I got these two humans instead. But I think they can _understand what we're saying._"

"What?" The Magnezone protested. "That's impossible." Caro and Kris shared a quick glance. Magnezone pointed on emagnet at Caro. "You! What does Pikachu evolve into? And how?" Caro blinked for a second, then responded.

"P-pikachu evolves into Raichu, with a Thunderstone..." The steel Pokemon lowered its magnet slowly, staring at Caro. "Who... are you...?" He muttered.

"And just why should we tell you?" Kris glared at the two Pokemon, hands folded over her chest.

"All right, fine, Miss Defensive. Don't answer that." The Magnezone huffed. "Try this: Why are you here, and where are you going?"

"You sure ask a lot of questions..." Caro pointed out. "Shut up!" the Pokémon growled in response.

"Fine, fine. We'll tell you a little bit." Kris grumbled. She didn't like this street Pokémon at all.

* * *

_Author's Notes: _Chapter Seven.

Magnezone and Skuntank will have some importance later on... can you guess who they were? (Many thanks to Arrowfoot the Dragon and Skyline Stanza, the only people who have bothered to review. I'm glad you guys like it! ^^)


	8. Of Stealth and Skuntank

BEGIN Chapter Eight;

"...Yeah. We've never been to this part of the world before, and our friend hasn't been here for a really, really long time..." Kris finished with a shrug. Magnezone still wasn't persuaded. "Where _is _this friend of yours?" He asked.

"In the forest." Caro replied. "He doesn't really like to be around people. Don't ask me why – he's sort of weird."

Skuntank blinked. "You never told us this guy's name!" He pointed out.

"Oh, yeah. His name is Helio." Kris shrugged again. Magnezone glared at her for another brief moment, then dipped the front part of his body forward in a nodding action.

"Fine." He grumbled, clearly unhappy about not getting much information. "Go now." He pointed a magnet towards the south exit of the City. Kris nodded and swiveled towards it.

"Right. Bye." She grabbed Caro's arm and set a swift pace. Skuntank glanced up at Magnezone.

"Well?" It asked. "Are you going to send a Magnemite after them?"

"Of course." The screws on Magnezone's back began to turn in different directions, eventually turning so that one point of the plus-shaped indents on the tops of each one were facing the antenna atop its head.

Almost immediately, a Magnemite came to a halt in front of him. "Go follow those humans, and see what they're up to. Then, report back to me. Stealth, if possible." The Magnemite did a full cartwheel to show its approval, and then set off at a pace to match the two humans.

The Magnemite was sending a steady flow of pictures and data back to its leader, who was skimming it, searching for something useful and/or interesting. But when the Magnemite sent a rather odd report, Magnezone began to pay more attention...

"**New target identified. New target human male, adult. Targets interacting with New Target. Over."**

Then the next picture feed came in, and Skuntank's mouth fell wide open at what was happening on Magnezone's projection.

"No... way." He squeaked. "Do you think that guy was...?"

"Of course he was, dimwit. You just didn't realize it." Magnezone replied, still staring at the video feed, when a new message came in to interrupt their gawking.

"**Target identified. Additional identification now available. Name: Cyrus (Surname Unavailable). Most recent identified sighting: Spear Pillar. Estimated: 10 years and three days previous to current date."**

That feed closed the matter. Skuntank scrabbled to his paws, racing off into the woods at incredible speed. Magnezone whirred along behind him, not wanting to be left out. _Well, it's about time. Where in Arceus' name have you been...?_

"Do you hear something?" Caro asked. "It sounds like buzzing of some kind..." He turned to Kris. She stopped and listened, trying to concentrate.

"No. I don't hear anything... you must be hallucinating, Caro. Heh heh." Kris snickered. "Hey!" Caro shouted back.

"Anyway, we're nearly to the edge of the city... and there he is, up there." Kris nodded to a dark cluster of foliage, where a single figure was only just discernible against the dark shadows.

Caro ran ahead into the darkness, while Kris paused for a little while. She looked around, wary of the dark shadows of the dusk-enveloped city. Anyone could be in those shadows... or anything, for that matter. And she didn't know how dangerous that anything was. And _that_ was dangerous.

Caro took a few more paces forward, until he was sure that the person lurking in the trees was, indeed, Cyrus. Caro smiled at him, and got a nod in response. Turning back around, Caro pointed to Kris. She was still lurking around silently back there for whatever reason. He walked back out of the shadowed area to retrieve her.

"Hey. Wake up, Sleeping Beautifly." Caro clapped his hands together in front of Kris' face, which effectively earned him a punch to the gut.

"Watch it, Mr. Brilliant." She spat back. Caro rubbed his stomach. "Fine, fine. Geez, let's just get out of here." He turned back to the forest, about to enter.

He hadn't even put his foot down before a large purple thing bowled him over and scampered into the forest. "Yeep!" Caro shouted, struggling to regain his balance. He failed and tumbled to the ground in a heap.

"Heh." Kris snorted, and walked over next to the still-winded Caro. "Can't even keep your ba-" Her sentence was cut off by a large black thing smacking into her arm, and sending her flying into the ground right beside Caro.

Kris looked up, just in time to see a Skuntank and a Magnezone moving into the forest, in Cyrus' direction.

Kris scampered to her feet, and pulled Caro up. He nodded thanks before they both scrambled off in pursuit of the Pokémon who had ever so graciously slammed them into the ground, and then headed off in a direction dangerously close to their friend who nobody should be seeing in this point in time.

The sound of crunching leaves brought Cyrus back to his senses. From the sound of it, whoever was making them wasn't a two-legged creature, so...

Wait a second. That was a buzzing. A very familiar buzzing. That was the buzzing of a frantic Magnezone, no mistaking it.

Turning to the location of the buzzing, Cyrus stared off into the darkness. It seemed to shift and turn, and little specks of light appeared to glint off of something... he barely had time to register this before a huge purple ball of fuzz rammed him down.

"What the-" The Magnezone blasted into the small clearing, staring at the Skuntank now sitting contentedly on Cyrus' chest and purring like a cat.

"Skuntank, get off of there, you gre- Oh." Magnezone stopped short as he thumped the mass of fur and claw off of Cyrus. "Hello again." He said sternly.

Cyrus opened his mouth to reply, but stopped himself. He left it open for a few seconds before closing it again and letting the situation run in his head.

"This is not happening." He muttered. "It isn't. You're just some regular Magnezone and some hyperactive Skuntank who... who..."

Skuntank looked back at him over the large mass of fur that was his tail and seemed to cock an eyebrow. "Quit denying it." He said. Cyrus stared back at Magnezone, who was staring at Skuntank, who was still staring at Cyrus.

"Hi." He chirped.

"First off, what are you and Skuntank doing here?" Cyrus asked, getting up. Magnezone sighed.

"Long story... very, very, _very _long. Are you traveling with a couple of pipsqueaks? And what the heck for?" Magnezone gave a hasty answer, and launched nto his own interrogation.

"Magnezone, shut up." Skuntank rolled over to glare at Magnezone. "Can't you see he's had a long day?"


	9. The SuperclicheSurefire Pokémon Get!

BEGIN Chapter Nine;

Bizarre and Mostly Unknown References

"What's going on...?" Caro asked as he and Kris finally found their way into the clearing where the little rendezvous was in full swing. "You..." Magnezone turned back to Kris. "You... LIED! Lying liar! I understand why, yeah, but you LIED!" He pointed one magnet to Kris in an accusing fashion.

"Me?" Kris snorted, and pointed to herself. "Why, I never." She shrugged. "I told you the truth. I gave you his name." Magnezone glared at Cyrus. "Did you…?" He asked. Magnezone was big on truthfulness, it seemed. "Yes. I did." He got up, and walked over to Caro and Kris.

"I lied to you, but only because I wasn't sure who you were." Caro and Kris stared at him, blinking as if they didn't believe what they were hearing. "My name isn't Helio. It's Cyrus." He honestly didn't want to know what Caro and Kris would say when they found out he had been lying to them from the get-go, but it was unavoidable thanks to the… new additions.

"I understand." Kris smiled at him. "I get it completely. You were really suspicious and wanted to see if anyone else went through what you did, so you gave us a fake name. How did you think it up, though?" She asked. "I'm not sure, honestly. It just flicked into my mind. But perhaps you should just keep on calling me Helio, just to have another small defense." Cyrus replied.

Caro cut in to the conversation, as he seemed to be quite fond of doing lately. "Okay. So who are _they_?" He pointed to Magnezone and Skuntank somewhat accusingly. "Right. Those two." Cyrus nodded at Magnezone. "First up is Magnezone. Last time I saw him, he was a Magneton. The reason he recognized me was… he was my Pokémon when I was younger, actually. I gave his Pokéball to somebody I trusted when the whole thing started, and he must have evolved in the meantime. I'm not sure why he returned to Mt. Coronet, however."

Caro and Kris stared at Magnezone for a few seconds. "And Skuntank," he continued, "was Jupiter's. You recall me telling you about her, correct?" The two nodded. A few seconds passed, and…

"That's why you wanted to find him really bad!" Caro gasped, as if he had just realized this. Kris glared at him. He shrugged back. "What? Just because I'm not as good as you two at figuring things out…" Kris rolled her eyes. "Well, where do we go from here?" She asked.

Magnezone spoke. "She's looking for you, you know." He told Cyrus. "She's still got her hopes up. I don't know how she did it, but she still does." Cyrus nodded, as if he understood the whole thing. "And the Murkrows?" He asked. "Um. Yeah. About them…" "Please don't tell me she has the Murkrows." Magnezone didn't reply.

"I figured. Who else?" "Uhh… let's see. Last time I checked, she had Arbok, Moltres, Aerodactyl, and Raikou. Along with the Murkrows and that Luxray you did a while back, but he's somewhere else. She lost the controller, and…" "Of course she did." Cyrus got up. "Anyway, we would best be going now." Caro and Skuntank stared up at him, horrified.

"Like… without Skuntank?" Caro whined. "Jupiter released me, officially. It's legal." Skuntank explained. "All right, fine. Magnezone, do you have the Pokéball?" Magnezone dipped his front parts forward in a nodding motion. "You wanted it?" "Of course I wanted it." Magnezone tossed him the scratched-up Ultra Ball. "Thank you. Now, we get going."

Caro nodded. He had already caught Skuntank, and was now safely in a Pokéball. "Well, this was fun. How come I don't get a new Pokémon?" "I don't think Toxicroak or Purugly are anywhere around here. So, no. You don't get a new Pokémon." Kris grumbled angrily, but gave no further comment.

Later that night, Kris woke up in her sleep. After realizing the other two were still asleep, she slunk off to check out the scenery. As she walked, the gentle cooing and hooting of the night Pokémon echoed all around her. Breathing deeply, Kris felt much better. She didn't know why she went to this place, but it was quite a sight to see.

"You came here too, huh?" A Bibarel slunk out from behind a clump of trees. "It's real pretty this time of night… it calms me." Kris jumped, but soon relaxed when she saw it was only a Bibarel. "You're right." She said, looking at the scenery. The Bibarel was a little surprised when she responded in a way that made sense, but shrugged it off.

"I heard about you." He said, smiling at her. "You're that girl who talks to Pokémon, aren't you? They said you used to be a Raichu." Kris shook her head. "Persian," she corrected. "A friend of mine was the Raichu." The Bibarel's aloof grin turned to a slight grimace as he remembered something.

"Have you heard? Some friends of mine said that madman was back." "Which one?" Kris asked, beginning to get worried. "That's right, there are a lot of nutcases here. But the one I'm talking about… the one who tried to control Giratina." The Bibarel shuddered. "I thought he got what he deserved, but not so for those of us looking on from above." The Bibarel glanced up towards the stars.

Kris was beginning to feel sick. "My friends and I haven't been here in a while, so I don't know any of the history…" Bibarel nodded. "I see. What happened was, this weirdo just had a bunch of slave clones stomping around trying to steal Pokémon. Makes me sick. And then he went about trying to steal Uxie, Mesprit and Azelf… then you know what? He tried to blow up the universe, that's what he tried to do. It's disgusting. Sometimes I wonder if people like him have any emotion at all."

"But he hasn't been doing anything ridiculous. In fact, a friend of mine saw him just the other day. He's a Trainer's Pokémon, see. So am I. Met the guy up in the sky. He was flying on that Honchkrow of his, and… that thing is _strong._"

"Oh, hey. My Trainer must have realized I'm gone. Nice talking to you." The Bibarel got up and chirped happily as a girl ran on to the scene. "Bibarel! There you a-" As soon as she saw Kris, her face hardened. "You weren't talking to _her, _were you? I hope not. People like her shouldn't get away from their scummy friends." Kris snorted angrily. "Excuse me?" She asked, standing up. "What do you have against my friends?" She, in reality, knew exactly what the girl had against her friends, but she wasn't thinking.

"Yeah, you heard me." The girl growled. "That scumbag buddy of yours, on the Honchkrow. Don't you know what he did?" She turned around. "Come on, Bibarel." She said. "You don't need to socialize with brats like this." Bibarel shot Kris a shocked glance before following his Trainer. He felt terrible.

He had just recently pieced together what his Trainer and her Swellow had said. "Yikes." He grumbled. "I didn't mean to hurt you like that, whoever you were… you seemed like a nice person. Much better than this girl…" Bibarel gave a glance back at Kris, before his Trainer's harsh voice reached his ears. "Don't look back, Bibarel. Keep walking and you'll get out of her pollution zone."

That was the last straw. "You know what?" Bibarel spat, even though he knew his Trainer didn't know what he was saying. "I'll pass." He shot a Water Gunat her back and plodded away, Pokéball in hand, right back to Kris. "Here." He said. Handing the Pokéball to Kris, he smiled warmly. "You're much better than she is, even if I need to travel with that… guy. And, I'm sorry about what I said earlier…" He looked away.

"It's all right," Kris smiled back at him, "you didn't know. Do you have a name you like to call yourself?" "No, I just stick with Bibarel." She took the Ball from his paw ad examined it. It was dirty and slightly rusty – she had a bad feeling about this girl. "Bibarel," she said, "welcome to the team."


	10. Rin

BEGIN Chapter Ten;

Rin

When Kris re-entered the clearing where the three had camped for the night, she found Cyrus performing a rather unusual practice on Magnezone.

"Wh-what are you doing?" She squeaked. Cyrus looked up. He appeared to be… repairing Magnezone.

"You don't know how a Magnezone works! You could hurt him!" She ran over, but Cyrus put out a hand.

"One, I'm good with machines. Two, I've been living as a Magneton for the past ten years. If that isn't knowing what you're doing, I can't think of what is."

Kris grumbled angrily and got back into her sleeping bag, Bibarel curled up next to her...

"We should be nearing Sandgem Town right about now." It was the next morning, and Caro, Kris, and Cyrus were on their own once again.

"Shrubbery?" Caro asked in a bored tone, turning to Cyrus for a second. "Shrubbery." Came the equally blank reply.

"Hey, Caro. I'm going to poke around over there. Don't get yourself killed, okay?" Kris pointed to one end of Sandgem Town.

"Whatever." Caro mumbled. He turned the other way to wander aimlessly. He did so, for a few minutes… until a rather dramatic entrance interrupted him.

"Hey! You!"

Abruptly, a woman burst out of a house on the northern side of town. She was a thin person, wearing a black shirt and blue pants underneath a white lab coat. She had jet-black hair that went down to her shoulder blades in he back with long stringy bangs covering her face. Her eyes were a bit larger than normal, and her face a bit longer, too. She looked to be what humans called a 'professor'.

Caro nearly jumped out of his skin as the woman blasted out the door facing him, panting slightly. "Have you seen a tall guy, spiky blue hair, sorta pale fa-" Apparently, this lady was describing Cyrus. Caro opened his mouth to respond, but at that moment, an Ursaring slipped outside and covered one broad paw over the woman's mouth. "Urrrrrrrrsa-ring!" It scolded.

"What in the- Professor, are you ambushing travelers again?" A third figure stomped out of the house. This one was a female, about twelve years old. Most of her thick, brown hair was tied back in a lengthy ponytail, though her bangs and some locks on the side of her face were left untied. She was wearing a white shirt under a tattered charcoal-colored jacket, as well as blue jeans patched in various places. A look of combined embarrassment and anger was twisted onto her face. "Ursaring, you can let go now." She commanded.

The girl turned to Caro, who recognized her immediately and backed up a few steps.

"Wait a second…" the girl began. "You're with the scumbag, aren't you?" Her eyes narrowed. "Where's the other tagalong? Licking her wounds in the forest? Shame… I wanted to ask how the useless Bibarel she got was coming along."

"Actually, I'm right here." Kris said bitingly, exiting the Pokémart and moving over to stand next to Caro. "You called?" She growled.

"Well, isn't this just fine and good. Hey, you know what I just noticed? The scumbag isn't here. Now, where could he be…?" The girl looked around in mock confusion; hand on her chin, she wanted to see Caro and Kris' reaction.

--------------------------

Cyrus really detested Sandgem Town.

Not only was it dangerously close to Mesprit, it was also where the brat – Dawn, was it? – Was currently in residence. No doubt about it; if the woman – as she probably was now - saw him, Cyrus was dead meat. He made his way as quickly and quietly as he could through the vegetation, but stopped short when he heard Kris' voice echoing form the town. Was she… shouting?

"This will not end well." He began to peer out from the shadows of a large building – probably Dawn's lab, but he didn't honestly care – and watched as the scene unfolded before him.

Kris and another girl seemed to be shouting, in an argument of some sort. The girl… she was the same idiot who had attacked him in midair a few days ago. His prediction, he felt, was entirely correct; this would not end well at all.

"What's your name, anyway?" Caro huffed. "We can't possibly unleash our poison-tongued wrath upon you without your name." Kris glared at him, but the girl fell for it.

"You," she said, "may call me Rin. I came from Kanto, and have traveled all over the world, y'see – but I don't see how dingbats like you knew what Kanto was." Kris snarled. If there was one thing she hated, it was people acting all high-and-mighty and treating everyone else like dirt. Unfortunately for this Rin kid, she was the poster child.

"Now listen here, you." Kris growled at Rin. "I'd be more than happy to kick you and your Pokémon's sorry tails."

Rin smiled nastily. "Aww, but I really do hate seeing insolent little children get hurt… well, okay. Double battle. Me against you and your boyfriend." Caro wasn't paying much attention up until this point, but at the mention of him being Kris' girlfriend he stiffened up.

"You're on." He spat at her.

"Ooh, goody goody."

"Charizard, Tyranitar. You're up." Rin flung two Pokéballs into the air, to reveal two menacing Pokémon. One was a large red-orange dragon, with a long tail tipped with fire that lashed every which way. It had a strong jaw, and bared its sharp teeth. Two spikes protruded from the back of its huge skull, just above small, angry eyes. Leathery, navy-blue dragon wings spread out as it roared, making the Charizard look even scarier than it already was. It shifted its weight from one broad back claw to the other, huffing smoke from its snouted nostrils all the while.

The other was a large green lizard-like Pokémon, with thick armor. Its eyes glinted malevolently, as it let out a huge roar. It had a blue diamond-shaped indentation in its stomach area, as well as an armored, multi-layered tail. Tyranitar shook its large head violently, and put out one claw, talon pointed at the two teenagers with a very "Hey! You!" expression on its face. (Yes, this was a reference to the incredibly amusing D/P sprite.)

Rin sighed. "Tyranitar, Tyranitar. Must you be so showy?" Tyranitar rumbled, but made no further comment. Kris rolled her eyes.

"Can't you see your Pokémon hate you? You're a bad Trainer, and you don't cut them any slack. At all." She took out a Pokéball, and glanced at Caro. "Right. Sneasel, go!" He flung the ball into the air, and Sneasel leapt back down, ready to pummel whatever stood in its way.

At least it was, until it saw what its opponents were.

"A Charizard. Really." Sneasel glared back at Caro. Kris shook her head, and took out a Pokéball.

"Medicham, get ready!" Medicham leaped out from its Ball in a graceful motion, striking a taunting pose before getting into battle position. Caro stared at her as if she was stupid, but Kris just grinned back. "It's okay," she whispered. "I have it covered." Caro shook his head and turned back to the battle.

Rin either wasn't thinking, or didn't remember Medicham's move set, as she decided to attack Sneasel. "Tyranitar, Stone Edge on Sneasel!" Tyranitar began to slam the ground with its tail and fists, sending large chunks of rock into the air. A bright white glow emitted from its eyes as the boulders were sent hurdling towards Sneasel.

But, just for good measure, Charizard began charging a Fire Fang. Once the necessary amount of combustion was arranged in its mouth (it must be heat-proof or something, Caro thought), Charizard lunged for Medicham. She giggled like a young girl, and watched with a grin as the Charizard aimed for her with a cocked head and a goofy grin. At the last second, she leaped in the air and landed behind Charizard with a spin and a Thunderpunch.

Sneasel yelped in pain as the Super Effective Rock-type move came in contact. He was knocked back, but endured and was still ready to fight. Tyranitar rolled its eyes and lined up a Rock Slide. "Metal Claw, Sneasel!"

"Now you're thinking." Sneasel's claw took on a metallic sheen, and he sprinted towards the Tyranitar, who was busy making a giant rock appropriate for sliding. The Super Effective attack hit him in the unguarded blue area of his chest.

"GACK!" Tyranitar shouted. "That was cheap, man. Real cheap." He began to haul the huge boulder up, until he could fling it at Sneasel.

Medicham, noticing that Sneasel was in trouble, turned her attention away from Charizard. "Hi Jump Kick!" Medicham proclaimed as she bounded into the air once again; she wasn't trying to be fancy or graceful this time – she just needed to be accurate. Charizard took the chance, and began another Fire Fang.

The following situation was quite interesting: Tyranitar was on the receiving end of one of Medicham's Hi Jump Kicks while she was being bitten around the waist by Charizard. A simultaneous scream of pain from Medicham and Tyranitar ensued. Both fell to the ground, defeated.

Charizard blew the last bit of smoke from his mouth, and looked around. This little skirmish of theirs had attracted the attention of the entire town. Even Ursaring had dragged Professor Dawn Driftwood out from her lab to watch.

"Well, well." Charizard let out a loud laugh that made Sneasel whimper in fear. "It would seem your comrade-in-arms has fainted. You have no decent attacks against me, and almost any move in my arsenal could destroy you in a heartbeat. I think I'll savor the moment, and watch you cower at the same time! This is just too much fun." Charizard shot a toothy grin down at Sneasel, who was looking up into the large dragon's eyes.

_This is it, man._ Sneasel thought. _It's been a nice life._


	11. The Meaning of Resistance

BEGIN Chapter Eleven;

The Meaning of Resistance

Frowning deeply, Sneasel braced himself for the impact. "It's been good, buddy." He said softly, under his breath so that the Charizard about to roast him for lunch wouldn't have another excuse to mock him without mercy.

"Go ahead," he said out loud, "do what you like with me. Make me faint, kill me, anything. I will take it like a male either way." He stood up to his full height (which wasn't all that much taller than he was anyway) and stared Charizard straight in the face. He had no reason to do something so foolish as to present himself to be barbecued like a cowering wimp; if he was going to be barbecued for a dirt-talking Charizard's lunch, he would take it like no Sneasel worth his salt would - with honor.

The Charizard was not fazed, but was rather even more amused.

"This keeps getting better and better!" the dragon pronounced. He stood on his haunches, pondering the best and most pleasurable way to sauté the little thing. He didn't expect Sneasel to go anywhere, and Sneasel was not terribly likely to back down.

"Oh yes," Charizard muttered. "This shall be fun." As he spread his wings for dramatic effect, the beginnings of a Dragon Pulse were already rushing about in Charizard's gaping mouth.

Unfortunately, this spectacular display of spontaneous combustion was cut short by a Thunderbolt that emitted a loud sizzling sound hitting Charizard in the skull.

The Charizard coughed and wheezed, still twitching from the mini-nuclear explosion that followed. It took a final breath, and thumped to the ground, out cold. Of course, this last breath sounded like something only the _best_ and _most respectable_ Charizards would say: **"YOU ICICLE-TOTING WIMP!"**

Everyone gasped in unison and began to search frantically for the creature that had summoned such a powerful attack; but the thing responsible was lurking in the trees just outside of their line of sight.

"Good, Magnezone." Cyrus turned to his Pokémon, who whirred.

"Of course." Magnezone bleeped back.

Something stirred in the trees behind Magnezone. He turned around to see what had made the disturbance.

"Who's there…?" He whispered.

"Oh, nobody important." An innocent, but cold female voice echoed out from the trees. A crimson-colored gem glowed, illuminating bright yellow eyes and a pink-and-blue face halfway between a wry grin and an evil smirk. It was attacked to a blue body, covered by the bushes. Not a pretty picture, I tell you.

"Come closer." Mesprit cooed. "I have something to ask you." She slipped further into the forest.

"I need to check on something. I think I heard a disturbance." Cyrus nodded.

"Go ahead." He leaned in the shadow of the huge building, listening to the uproar a few feet away.

"What is it?" Magnezone asked. He had arrived in a clearing not far from the space where he had fried Charizard from. Mesprit was floating four feet in the air, looking down at him. Four thick, pink, tube-shaped appendages with rounded edges stuck out of the sides and back of her head. The same pink color circled around her eyes and baby-blue face like a mask. Two long tails flowed down from the blue body, ending in spikes and another gem.

She smirked at him. "I call upon the higher powers bestowed upon me by the Unknown One," she muttered. "I call upon my powers to mold the emotion of this metal creature to my will, and to keep it until I may dislodge it or it's consciousness is lost, should that be the case." Mesprit wanted to say 'no matter what' but Arceus forbade her; so she did the best she could. With this she began moving her hands in an odd motion, as if she were dragging things off an invisible touch screen. Magnezone blinked.

"Y-yes, Mistress? What do you require of me?" He asked, making another odd bowing motion. Her malevolent grin widened as she explained to Magnezone what she wanted him to do…

"Of course, my Mistress. I will follow your instructions to the syllable." He bowed again and turned to leave, heading back for Sandgem Town…

Cyrus watched as Magnezone flew over him and into the town, where the uproar from the battle had died down and Kris, Caro, and Rin were back to their flame war. Caro looked away for a second, and noticed Magnezone skid to a halt. All eyes were on Magnezone as Caro nudged and pointed to Kris. She turned, and fell slack-jawed.

For, you see, Magnezone was going full force. He was electrocuting _everything. _There were electric sparks flying as he sent various attacks in every direction he could reach. People began to scream and retreat to their homes, but Sandgem town wasn't big enough for everyone to find a way away; he was blocking the north exit, and the other land route was blocked off by a fallen tree, now on fire; not many people had Surfing Pokémon on them, either.

Mesprit watched in amusement from the underbrush as Cyrus analyzed the situation. If he just stood here out of sight, Magnezone would overheat and quite possibly explode. If he didn't, well… if he didn't, he would have to run out into the town square, shut Magnezone down, and get he, Caro, and Kris out of there before anybody saw him.

Mesprit had it all planned out.

It was genius.

Magnezone was beginning to overheat, and sooner or later Cyrus would have to run out, leaving himself open for Mesprit to attack and to be seen by passerby. She began to giggle as Cyrus made his decision.

He bounded out into the town, shoving screaming citizens out of his way. Most of them were running for their lives, and the rest had only a split second to se him before he kept moving and was swallowed up by the crowd. He soon got to Magnezone, who was reaching the danger zone by now. Mesprit's smile began to turn into a frown as she remembered this mortal's talent.

He leaped onto Magnezone's top half, positioning both feet on the magnets on either side. He held on to Magnezone's antenna with one hand, and with the other began to frantically remove a panel on Magnezone's back. He knew this thing inside and out. However, trying to deactivate a bucking Magnezone who is quite capable of exploding at the slightest mess-up made the operation a bit more difficult.

Most people had gotten into their homes by now, and were shoving their heads up against the window panels trying to catch a glimpse of their almost-savior. They were pretty happy with the guy; at least they were, until a particularly bright Energy Ball lit up the person on Magnezone's back as it dropped to the ground with a _thud. _

A woman watched the scene from the window of a Pokémon Center from behind dark sunglasses. There were so many emotions swirling around in her head, she couldn't decide on one to put on her face. Everyone else jumped in surprise when the Magnezone fired the Energy Ball. She just began to shake violently. Dizzily, she made her way back to her room and didn't come out until the next morning…

Cyrus returned Magnezone as he ran, grabbing Caro and Kris by the arm as he tore off into the forest moving towards Twinleaf Town. Mesprit left for her cave, grumbling angrily.

"That little _pest!" _She hissed. "I made a perfect plan, and that _scummy Link-spamming dingbat screwed it all up!" _

Messing with Legendaries, as you should realize by now, is a very messy and serious affair. Thus, it was not recommended by anybody. Ever. But people still did it, and most of the Legendaries give the punishment, and once they've done their work shrug it off. But not Mesprit.

No, not Mesprit at all.

She usually goes along with it with all of the other Legendaries, and the other Legendaries accept that. But this was the first time she's lost her cool like this, and all of the other members of the celestial Cool Kids table knew something was going to go very, very wrong with Mesprit's desire for twisted justice. And the worst part was, nothing in their power could be done to stop her.

Mesprit teleported back to her cave, frowning deeply. It would be rather difficult to describe what she was saying and keep any sign of respect for the younger crowd, so it shall just be said that she was very, very angry and was speaking as such.

"Well, that was fun." Kris said coldly as they caught their breath in a separate area of the forest, hopefully far away enough from Sandgem Town.

"Caro nearly got himself beaten to a pulp, Magnezone went on rampage, you went out in public, and someone is trying very hard to screw up our lives. I can't wait to wake up tomorrow."

She growled as a large raindrop fell with a plop on to her head.


	12. Something Legendary This Way Comes

BEGIN Chapter Twelve;

Something Legendary This Way Comes

It was quite odd how Fate would mess with Kris (and everyone else in the little traveling party) in this fashion.

She did not pretend that she knew what the heck Fate was thinking, or why it went out to lunch and left Irony to tweak about for it.

In reality, Fate was having a lot of fun.

Palkia watched his little reunion in hysterics. "I… am… a… genius!" He chortled. It was quite obvious that Palkia was enjoying this immensely.

"Having fun?" Dialga asked, plodding into the room and trying not to scratch his annoyingly long and sharp foot ornaments on the luminous ivory-and-pearl flooring.

"I'm fine…" Palkia turned to his brother. "But did you _see _what I did there?" Dialga frowned. "You're quite the prankster, aren't you? Arceus might not be too thrilled about it." Palkia harrumphed and folded his arms.

"Now why would Arceus be mad?" He frowned. "It was all in good fun. Besides, nobody got hurt."

Shaymin padded into the room. "Are you sure?" She asked meekly. "It looked pretty bad out there. Plus you made Cyrus go out into the open…"

"That was Mesprit," Palkia argued back. "Besides, all I did was make the two pass Professor Driftwood. All of the other stuff was her doing."

"And you could have stopped it, though." Shaymin flicked into Sky form and leaped onto Palkia's desk, where he was controlling the universe on what seemed to be a large touch screen. "But did you? Nope."

"No I couldn't. I can't control another Legendary…"

"But you _could _control Magnezone."

"I could not! I make fate. I don't control things. You want control? Go whine to Arceus or someone." Dialga nodded in agreement.

"True." He rumbled. "Well," Shaymin frowned, and grabbed a rather good-looking French éclair from Palkia's own creation, the Platter of Spacewarped Baked Goods.

"Just what makes you think you couldn't put a barrier or something in the way?" She frowned, taking a small bite out of the éclair.

"I was busy in Johto." Palkia grumbled, snatching the Platter of Spacewarped Baked Goods out of Shaymin's paws. Shaymin rolled her eyes and turned away to float back down to the floor.

"Well, fine." She said. "Be that way." And with one last wave of her short tail, Shaymin padded out of the room.

"There's nothing going on in Johto, is there?" Dialga asked. "Nope. Nothing at all." Palkia replied with a wry grin.

Kris was trying quite hard to be an optimist. She really was. But so far, everything that had happened here had gone pretty bad. And when things get pretty bad, Kris' mood takes a nosedive.

She trudged irritably through the forest, taking glances at hr traveling companions once or twice. One of them was a helpless goofball, and the other was… well…

"What are we supposed to do now?" Kris asked irritably, as much to the open air as to Caro and Cyrus. "Turning around isn't the most fantastic of ideas, and nor is going forward. Can't go around it, can't go under it."

"That leaves only one option: go above it." Came Cyrus' reply. "Where to?" Caro asked. Cyrus looked up. "It should be late enough by now." He observed. "We are going to Eterna City." Caro and Kris had no question why.

Nodding, the two smaller figures whipped out their Pokéballs and flung them into the air. Cyrus did the same. "Eterna City." He said, once the three Pokémon were all present.

Honchkrow looked around cautiously, a hint of fear in his eyes. "Are you sure…?" He squawked. "I mean… Eterna is… and the building… and the…" But he quickly cut off the string of complaints. "Okay, okay! I get it! You can stop staring at me now!" (Unfortunately, Cyrus hadn't kept his promise to never attempt interaction again.)

After the three had ascended their mounts and were up in the air, Cyrus' Crobat was sent ahead to scout for danger (danger, in this case, meaning Trainers or enraged Legendaries). After the Pokémon returned with no news of importance, he was sent back to his Pokéball after declining the offer to keep flying.

It was, as Crobat promised, an uneventful ride. Nothing but cold, wet cloud, pricks of light, and dark blue vastness around the three… it got quite boring, but thankfully the ride didn't drag on _that _long.

The lights on the Pokémon Center were, of course, on. That could mean only one thing, and nobody was quite thrilled about what that one thing was. As Caro, Kris, and Cyrus trudged along the forest area next to the path from Eterna Forest, the light coming from the Pokémon Center faintly illuminated something a little way to the north. Kris cringed, and Caro took a sharp intake of breath.

For, in the exact location that the Eterna Galactic building had been before, there was the same building – except most of it was crumbled ruin.

A normal person in Cyrus' position would not be too pleased with this. But this is Cyrus we're talking about, so there was none of that 'emotion' rubbish here. Arceus no.

Thus forth, Cyrus felt nothing at all when he saw that mess of brick that _used _to be the Eterna Galactic Base.

"Ouch." Caro mumbled, breaking the silence. "So that's what… about half of the building looked like." Kris said, more to herself than anyone else. Suddenly, her eyes widened in surprise as the moon shifted for a second and caught a glimpse of light from within the half-crumpled ruin.

"Hey! Did you see that?" Apparently, Caro had seen it too. "Yes." Cyrus whispered back. "I say we investigate. It's around one in the morning, and who's gonna look at an old ruin anyways?" Nobody had any better ideas, so Caro lead the way into the ruined building.

Around this time, Cyrus was beginning to lose his grip on the rotten things people called 'emotion'. He was keeping a blank face and tone, yes, but with some difficulty. It was quite overwhelming, in fact.

"Hunh? What's this?" Kris broke into Cyrus' train of thought. "What is it?" Caro leaped over a rubble pile to see, as did Cyrus. She was holding something small and red. It was chipped and cracked in several places; it looked like a chain link. It was blood red, however, and had the texture of sandpaper. "Give me that." Cyrus took the peculiar link from Kris' palm.

"It's a piece of the Red Chain." He said finally. "However, it was very crudely made and did not have the proper materials required for its creation. Whoever made this was either in a hurry, not paying any attention, or didn't care. The third option seems the most likely. However…"Cyrus' voice trailed off. Caro and Kris simply stared at him, surprised and astonished by his accurate explanation just by looking at it.

"'However' what?" Caro asked. "However, this was not made by any human being." "Well what do you think made it? A Bibarel?" Caro protested cynically, crossing his arms. "Hey!" Kris hissed in his direction. Caro rolled his eyes, clearly forgetting about Kris' Bibarel. "Yeah, yeah, whatever."

"Not a Bibarel, or any other normal Pokémon, for that matter." Cyrus continued to scrutinize the Red Chain link. "No… this had to have been made by a Legendary, of some sort." "And what Legendary would try to make a Red Chain?" Caro snorted.

"I have a fairly good idea who, in fact." Came his response.


	13. The Problem with Infamy

BEGIN Chapter Thirteen;  
The Problem with Infamy

A tall woman watched from the dark corners of what was left of the Eterna Galactic Building, on the top floor.

This place gave her goose bumps – she loathed it, for more reasons than it was merely a building owned by bad guys. It was a bit more personal than that… scratch that. It was _far _more personal than that.

The figure watched from the shadows as three humans moved around below her. Frowning deeply, she tried to work out what was happening right now… three people, one of whom had caused major head bashing in the past, were kicking around in old ruins for no good reason – but they found something.

Something round. And red. And shiny. And painfully familiar.

Yami could feel her stomach lurch. She shook her head, whisking straight, ink-colored hair (cascading in spiky clumps near the bottom) that went down to her elbows from her face. She was slightly pale, and sported a mostly black ensemble; black shirt and pants, both seriously worn-out by the edges. These were covered by a long trenchcoat, which has also faced its share of tough love.

She removed the large black sunglasses from her face, shifting her weight uneasily. You couldn't see her eyes, even without the sunglasses, though; a ridiculous black hat resembling that of the crest of a Murkrow covered them. She had a black bag – the strap went around her chest and the actual bag hung down on her right side, right near her arm. The frown on her face deepened.

"What in the name of Arceus is he doing?... Scratch that – why is he alive?" She stared at the man now observing the piece of the Red Chain once again, and shook her head. She removed a Dusk Ball from her pocket, sent out a Honchkrow of her own, and mounted its back. It flew out of the ruins and streaked over the trio's head, squawking.

Yami groaned – her cover was blown. She needed to fix Nightwitch's squawking problem sometime soon.

"What was that?" Kris jumped and looked up.

"It was a Honchkrow. See it up there?" Caro pointed it out. Cyrus removed a Pokéball from his right pocket. He was about to toss it into the air and send out the Pokémon inside, when Caro stopped him by sticking out an arm. "What are you doing? It's a wild Honchkrow."

"It's not wild. It had a rider, and that rider was following us." His Crobat emerged from the red beam of light, a calling card to the black-clad woman riding above – this was fantastic. Just peachy.

"Air Slash." Cyrus said calmly to the large, purple bat.

As Crobat sent out the attack, Nightwitch tried to swerve out of the way. He failed miserably. The Air Slash collided with him, sending bird and rider down to the ground in a crumpled heap – hurt, but alive. The trio watched them descend to the ground, as if in slow-motion.

"Hey! You were right!" Kris' eyes widened as she ran over to the crashing site. She kneeled down and shook the woman. "Hey! Are you okay, ma'am?"

"Get off of me," she growled in return. Kris frowned.

"Well, if you're going to be that way, fine with me." And she backed off. The woman got up, and glanced around. She gave a slight shiver, and reached into her bag to grab a Hyper Potion for her Honchkrow when Cyrus turned her way.

She kneeled down, sprayed it on the Honchkrow's wing, and kept a hand there as it felt the stinging pain.

"Shh," she whispered, "Its' fine. Everything's okay." The Big Boss Pokémon chirped softly. "Can you fly?" She asked. It looked up at her and nodded its beaked head. She stroked its wing.

"Good." She took another glance at Caro, Kris, and Cyrus, and mounted his back. Shooting a frown in their general direction, she flew off silently.

"Who was that?" Caro mused, putting a finger on his chin momentarily.

"I have no idea." Cyrus watched her go.

They watched the silent night air for a few minutes, when Kris broke the awkward silence.

"So, Helio. Any other tourist locations around here?"

Cyrus hesitated for a second. "No."

"Well, if that's all today, I'm beat." Caro swiveled around and began to walk back towards the forest. Kris and Cyrus followed suit, the former gazing around at the dark city. They all stomped past a bush, rusting slightly. From the wind, apparently…

"Hm." A figure sat in the undergrowth, crouched low. It was a very odd catlike Pokémon, ears twitching constantly.

"I'm sleepy…" it yawned. "No! I have to keep awake this time!" The brown creature shook its head, and kept watching through its sightless eyes. A vaguely human-shaped body covered in tan and brown armor shifted to keep a center of balance, and a similarly covered tail stuck out behind.

It scampered into a large thorn bush near the humans strolling along. Well, okay, they _looked_ like humans but they all had the Aura of Pokémon (although that tall one had less Pokémon Aura than the other two). The Abra positioned itself, tensing the muscles in its legs as the small Psychic-type prepared to spring.

Long story short, it sprung – and did so do well that it landed on the tall one's head. Apparently startled, the human swiped at his hair. What happened next was a blur to anyone who was (hypothetically) passing. The Abra snatched the man's hand as he reached upwards, leaped onto the shorter girl's head while still clutching it, and grabbed a lock of the boy's hair in his free paw.

"TELEPORT!!" He pulled both paws down and sprung again off the girl's forehead.

As the Pokémon landed, the mental spell that someone – something – had laid on it lifted, and the drowsy creature flicked back to its home to sleep. He didn't care in the least what these guys were doing.

If you recall as the Abra slipped away into nowheresland, it let go of the man's arm and thrust him forward. As such, when the trio arrived at the Abra-for-hire's destination, Cyrus got a faceful of mud.

As he got up, he wiped the wet mess of dirt and water out of his eyes. "Disgusting," he muttered. "What creature did that?"

"I felt a really hard tug on my hair…" Caro rubbed his head as he emerged from a lake. Apparently, he had fallen in. "…and a flash of brown, too."

"I saw that too, yeah. And something sprang off of my forehead really hard…" Kris nodded. She was apparently the only one who hadn't been covered by a wet substance, but had instead landed on dry grass. The blonde girl was regaining her balance against a tree. "I think that it had armor."

"Armor?" Caro and Cyrus said together.

"I saw a brown chestplate thing." She shrugged.

"An armored Pokémon, tan apparently, with a brown chestplate. Small enough to keep its balance on my head and large enough to pull us off balance, sending us all down… there is only one Pokémon I can think of that fits our criteria, but what that Pokémon did was not like it at all."

Caro and Kris stared at him while they tried to calculate his mini-analyzing speech.

"Which would be…?" Caro gestured in a way for Kris or Cyrus to finish the sentence.

"An Abra, right?" Kris suddenly found its name.

"That's the only possible solution. Even though there is no other logical solution, it still acted very different than a normal Abra would have done in a situation like this one. It also clearly had a motive; there is no Abra who ever would have done that for pleasure. Or at all, for that matter."

Cyrus suddenly became aware that he had been rambling… again. With that, he added another mental note not to go on so much. (This one probably wouldn't go through either, judging by the success of the 'never talk to Honchkrow' concept.)

"Basically," Caro said slowly, "what you're saying is that Abra – if that was what it is – is working for something that's making it doing something it wouldn't usually do."

"Exactly. Ironically enough, the same thing happened to Magnezone earlier." Cyrus turned to the sun, which was now sending barely audible sparks of light across the black skies.

As it did, the rising ball of fire illuminated a floating figure perched on the top of a cave far out on the lake.

"Sweetness," it smiled, "I was wondering when you guys would kick it into gear and get over. I wanted to catch up."


	14. Ominous Messages of Doom

BEGIN Chapter Fourteen;  
Ominous Messages of Doom

From its perch on the lake, a creature watched the three figures now wandering around on the lakefront. It chuckled softly when they first appeared, shoving two of them into a huge vat of mud. It tried to listen as they slowly – very slowly – managed to figure out that it was, indeed, an Abra who had crammed them into that position.

"It's about time." The creature sat down to watch, directing its two long, stringy, baby-blue tails to wrap around it. A red gem glinted on the left tail, while the other one didn't have a gem for some reason. "I've been waiting for you three loonies." He watched with bright eyes setting out from a triangle-shaped face, swapping between two shades of blue. It had a body similar to that of Mesprit and Uxie. A red gem glinted in the early-morning light. The small Pokemon – about a foot high – repositioned himself to lay on his stomach.

"Finally," said Azelf, "I will be able to see you guys again. I've been watching…"

It sprang up off the cave top, and took a floating position in the air. Stopping briefly to check the winds, he sent himself propelling forward to zigzag in between the three, catching them all by surprise (but not all of them showing it – Azelf expected this).

"Heya!" He skidded to a halt on the left of the three humans. "Been a while." He smirked. In this time, Caro had fallen down again, and Kris was pulling him up gracelessly.

"Get up, Caro." Kris sighed and tugged on his arm. Caro stumbled to his feet, grumbling angrily. But despite their squabbling, Cyrus merely glanced at them, and returned his gaze to Azelf.

"You three are quite fond of that term, aren't you?" He said.

Azelf grimaced slightly at his remark, but soon brushed it away. "Nice to see you too." He said tartly. By now, Azelf had got word that these guys could talk now. It didn't honestly care how. "So, anyways. I heard about the whole Sandgem thing. Nice quick thinking, there. Especially since Mesprit sorta-kinda led you into a trap."

"She did what?" Kris had stood up, and along with Caro was now staring at Azelf.

"She led Cyrus into a trap," Azelf said matter-of-factly. "She manipulated your Magnezone. Probably did the same with that Abra."

"So, if what you're saying is true, the Abra attacked us because Mesprit told it to." Cyrus said.

"Yeah, pretty much. Any bets on why?" Azelf tilted his head to the left.

Everyone stayed silent. Caro made a gesture with his hand for Azelf to explain more.

"What? You want a play-by-play?" He looked at Caro skeptically.

"A reason why Mesprit tried to mess with me would suffice." Cyrus said.

"Right. Well."

"You see," Azelf explained. "You're sort of an odd case way Up There." It pointed upwards, at the now pink-red sky. "Up There being where the Legendaries go on their offtime. You know why you got turned into… what you got turned into, right?"

"I can only assume it's for what happened at the Spear Pillar. Correct me if I'm wrong."

"Yeah. Sort of obvious. Anyways, you're sort of an odd case. There are two opinions of you: Mesprit versus everyone else. All of us believe that you're off the hook 'cuz you got turned into a Magneton."

"But then, you know, there's Mesprit. She's convinced it was a sea-breezy little vacation for you, and that you need more punishment than that. I'll leave it up to your twisted little mind to figure out what she believes you need to face."

Azelf paused, and sighed softly. "So now, you know, she's out to cause turmoil of every breed, and despite our best efforts Legendaries can't do everything." This earned Azelf three glares from his audience. Realizing his mistake, Azelf giggled nervously.

"Well… you know… like dealing with Mesprit and the rest of the universe… it's real stressful. So we can't monitor her at all times. Or control her. Well, Arceus can, but I guess He figures that she's not all that much of a threat… then again, He hasn't really noticed. You know, with all His intergalactic mishmash and stuff." Azelf shrugged.

"So on the most basic level, Mesprit wants me dead and you can do practically nothing."

"Yep."

"I just noticed something…" Caro blurted out.

"Really." Kris grumbled. "And what was it, Mr. Too-Important-To-Wait-For-Azelf-To-Finish?"

"We've accomplished our mission, Kris." He smiled at her. "You said to me, a long time ago, that your wish was to find the greatest relics and meet the greatest Pokémon ever known. I think we've done it."

Kris clearly didn't see this coming, expecting rather another one of Caro's late ideas. "Yeah…" she mumbled. "You're right. We really did do it, didn't we, Caro?"

"Anyway…" Azelf said, a bit irked by this random outburst. "Be on your guard, 'kay? She might try to do something absurdly stupid… or something." He quickly added the last two words at the end. All three of them had a feeling that he already knew what Mesprit would do.

"Yeah. Right. Well, um… I guess you should be going now, because there's really not much left to do except hang around staring blankly at each other." Azelf shrugged.

"Uh, yeah! Exactly!" Kris had fallen into a daydream, and had missed Azelf's last words.

"Oh... um, uh... I forgot one thing." Azelf piped up as they turned to leave. Kris and Cyrus turned around, and Caro glanced over his shoulder. "What?" the boy asked, slightly irritated.

Azelf smiled grimly and ducked his head down slightly, so that his head gem and eyes glowed ominously. It certainly sent a message. "Don't kill yourselves. Mesprit has no mercy when she's mad – and you'd better believe she's mad. Any living thing could be under her influence, and there's really no way to tell – they just have loads of respect for her, and loads of hate for yo- hey, where are you going? Are you listening to me?"

The threesome left without another word.

"That was very out-of-character," Kris noted later on. "He seemed pretty upbeat until that last part..."

"Even so, he still gave you good advice. Mesprit really has no mercy when she wants to – and she can control other things, using their emotions to grant her great respect and loyalty, and us..." Cyrus' voice faded off.

"Nobody here really wants to know what she could set on us." Caro said grimly. "And yet everybody here does."


	15. The Right Thing

A creature plodded into the cave that held what, in its firm belief, was the most respectable and glorious being that Arceus had ever made, ever. Aforementioned being was in the middle of the cave, sitting down, head bowed and eyes closed. The four-legged creature walked forward.

"My lady," it said in a gravelly voice.

Mesprit opened her eyes slowly. What stood before her was a four-pawed mammal, with a large, imposing, and quite dangerous black scythe jutting out of the side of his head and curving backward, ever so slightly. A similar appendage served as its tail. Sharp black claws lay, unsheathing, on the rocky cave floor, partially covered by thick white fur.

"Absol," Mesprit said, smiling evilly. "How are our friends faring with Abra?"

"Oh, it was absolutely disastrous, my Lady. Absolutely disastrous. One for the record books, I'd say. It was also quite funny. You should have seen wh-" Mesprit cut in, cursing to herself on using such a talkative spy. Absols weren't supposed to be gabbing loudmouths…

"Spare me the detail, please. Now, what about Azelf?" Absol looked away. A strong blast of uneasiness radiated from him. "I see." She didn't need to ask. "Dismissed."

"My lady," The Absol crouched into a deep bow before padding off into the darkness once more.

"Azelf." Mesprit growled. "If only I could manipulate fellow Legends… then he would drown in his own grief. Oh, yes. That would be fun to watch…" Mesprit's smile turned from evil to maniacal.

She twitched from her meditating position, and floated up into the air. Slowly, her small figure slid into a side cavern. She followed it, dislodged the guard Pokemon she had positioned there, and entered a smaller cave room.

It was bathed in red glow by two red, chipped stones standing exactly five feet away from each other. She glided over to where an X was marked on a large boulder (moved in by a Machoke), and waited, not so patiently. She felt no regret, none at all.

After all, she _was _doing the right thing.

Caro, Kris, and Cyrus were trudging through wet mud, again. For real this time. It was no Medicham playing with them, or a prophetic dream of utmost importance. They were, quite simply, walking through thick and annoyingly slippery wet dirt. (Hey, what did you expect? Stories like these aren't explosion-to-explosion thrillfests cover to cover… but, there's always got to be something awesome, some time in the story. It's like one of those unwritten laws of literature.)

"We should be nearing a hotel by now," Cyrus started, "And I'll leave you to guess what's beyond that point." If he or Kris had said any more, Caro hadn't caught it. His mind was preoccupied with other things.

Caro shivered. He had an odd feeling in his body, like something was about to happen. Life will go on as it always has, things will happen anyway.

But this was different. It was like something very, very big was staring at him from a cage, glowering hungrily, the key slowly being inserted into the lock that kept it secure.

Something _was_ going to happen. It wasn't going to be fun. That much was certain.

As the Honchkrow beat its wings, the rider looked out over the blue sky, holding her three-pointed Murkrow hat in place with one hand.

There was no doubt about it – he was back. And he has a couple of pipsqueaks tailing along behind. She didn't understand any of it, and she hated not understanding something. She always had to understand everything, or at least try her hardest to – and that was her problem.

She directed the large bird to land, and it did so outside of the limits of Twinleaf Town. She didn't know exactly why she came here, but there was nothing much else to do. She quickly entered the clearing amidst the expanse of tree, and looked out over the shining lake.

A cave floated on an island barely bigger than its contents in the middle of the brilliant, shining blue waters.

"What is happening in there, Lucario?" She asked as she sent out a new Pokemon.

It was a canine, though perched on its hind legs. Jackal ears twitched, as the Pokemon closed its red eyes. There seemed to be a mask on its blue face, with four appendages similar to Mesprit's – except there were two on each side of his head, right below the blue ears.

Moving down to its cream-furred chest area, a white spike stuck out from the fur. Two blue arms ending in black paws and yet another spike clenched their fists. Lucario shifted his weight, and repositioned his black legs. "Luuuu!" It yelped suddenly. Its paws suddenly flared with blue light, almost like semi-transparent fire.

"Calm down, Lucario!" Yami put her hand on the Lucario's shoulder. "Something big's going on in there, huh?" She asked. Lucario nodded, curling his mouth into a snarl.

She took a step forward, but no sooner had she put her foot down that Lucario stuck out a spiked paw in front of her throat. She took a step in the opposite direction, shocked. Lucario shook his fur-covered head at her.

"What?" She said. "Why shouldn't I go in there?" Lucario fixed a stare on her that made his message quite clear: "Just don't."

"If it's just because it's dangerous, don't stop me." Yami frowned at her Pokemon. Crossing his paws over his chest, Lucario sighed and shook his head again – it wasn't the danger of an unknown cave.

Lucario wished he could get the message across to her: _There is something that will be painful to you in that cave, in more ways than one!_

But, alas, he couldn't. He knew his Trainer trusted the smarter creature's judgment. And, what do you know, she did. "Fine," the woman sighed, "you win. We'll leave." Satisfied, Lucario nodded at last as he was sent back into his Pokeball.

The woman fixed a last fleeting look at the cave on the island. Her gaze drifted down to rest on her Pokeballs, and she shrugged – what ferocious demon was going to nail her down here? A level twenty Psyduck, at the very most. That was hardly a threat. She began to walk away from the lakefront, not expecting anything of immediate danger to be around.

Of course, she never expected a Machoke to leap out at her from the undergrowth, and drag her back into the cave, gagged. But, you know, Machokes under a spell do some pretty dim-witted things (not that they're much better in full control, but who cares?)

Mesprit was interrupted by a slam at the cave wall. Furious, she got up from her solitary position and floated out into the cavern. "What is i-" It was one of her Machokes, apparently caught some human pain-in-the-tail slinking around outside.

"What are you waiting for?" She said in Pokespeak. "Bring it out so I can see our friend clearly." The Machoke yanked the woman into the brighter area. She wore a long black trenchcoat, heavily tattered, as well as a black shirt and pants. Her boots were a charcoal gray, with orange soles. The (in)famous Murkrow hat jerked off her head, as did her dark sunglasses.

_My sunglasses. _That was the only thought that ran through the woman's head as she felt her body soar forward in the Machoke's grip. '_My sunglasses… my sunglasses…' _And then a new blaring alarm shot through her body: '_If she sees my eyes, chances are I'm dead meat. Urgh, I hate him.'_

As the pair of shades clattered to the rock-strewn floor, the woman looked up at Mesprit. The Emotion Pokemon stared, dumbfounded, at her hostage's face. The confusion settled for a while.

But slowly, very slowly, right in front of the Machoke and his prisoner, Mesprit's eyes narrowed, and her mouth slowly rose up into a snarl/maniacal grin, pointed teeth glowing.

And, what do you know, she laughed. She laughed like a maniac. Again.

To be perfectly honest, the only actual reason she laughed like a maniac is simply because letting the line between right and wrong blur (and, in other words, going insane) does make some creatures laugh like that.


	16. Welcome Back

Welcome Back

Chapter Sixteen

Caro and Kris had explored just about all of Sinnoh. Ironically, the last place they visit was going to be the most dangerous – but they had to get through Route 222 first.

Eventually, two or three days later, they clawed to the large building that signaled the entrance to Sunyshore City. After looking up and admiring it for a few minutes, Caro peered in the giant metal entrance flanked by tacky yellow-painted walls. Kris did the same, and smiled. The streets were deserted; except for at the far side of the city… a huge crowd was assembled there, apparently for some sort of festival. Assuming nobody glanced at the entrance to the city, they should be perfectly fine.

Ah, the convenience of local festivities.

Exiting the gate, Caro casually strolled up to the forest's edge, standing as if he were admiring the forest. When Cyrus found him, Caro nodded subtly and indicated a short fence.

"Hm," Cyrus murmured. He got the picture.

As Caro turned and ran back to Kris, signaling to enter, Cyrus approached the fence. He calmly stepped over it (not highly difficult, seeing as the fence was about half as tall as he was). A patch of darkness in the shadow of the huge building seemed to shift slightly, but lay still after. Cyrus walked right past it, and met up with the two teenagers just to the side of the door.

"What's going on over there? It looks like some sort of festival," Kris pointed to the group over near the lighthouse.

"People here have many festivals and celebrations of that nature." Cyrus followed her gaze, and his eyes lingered on the lighthouse for a second.

"This place is really big." Caro mumbled as he looked around at the deserted city. "And those high-up walkways with the creepy blue tiling and everything… what the heck are they for, anyway?"

"Those tiles are solar panels. They power the city with the large amounts of sunlight Sunyshore City receives daily." Cyrus said to him. Caro was shocked. "You mean people can make electricity out of the sun's light?" He stared wide-eyed at them for a second.

"Yes." Cyrus said simply. "They can."

Caro was clearly impressed. "Huh." He said. "Cool. I'd like to walk on one of those." He admired them for a few minutes, and realized with a jolt that Cyrus had already started walking slowly around the mazelike city, looking like he knew the place like the back of his hand. Kris was in the same position that Caro was, admiring the solar streets – but as soon as she realized Cyrus was going somewhere, she blurted out her feelings.

"Where are you going?" Cyrus stopped, and turned around. "You'll get it eventually."

Accepting it as an answer, Kris and Caro followed. They soon found themselves on a cliff face. Caro had gotten his wish of walking on the solar panels, and he had gone back to wander around them some more. Kris and Cyrus, however, were staring at the house on the left.

"And… that would be yours, I'm guessing." Kris said blankly.

"Correct." Came the equally blank reply. "If you wish to stay outside, I understand."

"Arceus no!" Kris snorted. "I want to see what a house looks like!" Cyrus looked down at her. "Even though it's been deserted for quite a while now." Kris nodded. "Yeah." She walked over to Caro, and said something. He thought about it for a few minutes, making quite a show, and nodded. Kris beckoned him back to Cyrus. "Alright. Let's go in there."

Cyrus' old house was relatively normal, but Kris was looking around like it was an ancient temple. The ground floor was a large room, but going up a long set of stairs eventually led to a fairly lengthy hallway, with three doors – two on the right, and one on the left. Cyrus drifted towards the right side of the room, and stopped in front of the first door, considering if he should go in. After a few seconds of this, he moved on to the next door and pushed it open.

The resulting area looked like a robot had blown up in it. And, chances are, this room had faced its worth of exploding machines too.

Various bits and pieces of metal littered the floor, almost to the extent that they _were _the floor. A long bed was pushed in the corner, and near the only window in the room (which was facing the direction the sun sets - west) was a bettered desk, in much the same condition as the floor – bits and pieces of metal and paper sprawled over it. The walls were peeling and dull, as was to be expected – nobody had been in this place for ages.

Everyone was silent until Caro spoke in a traditionally Caro-like mood-breaking manner: "Well, now we know what your pastime is."

"It's funny how things like this work out, isn't it? They're like two completely different people." Everyone swiveled around to face an Alakazam, a smug expression on his face. "You may call me Tajiri, but I hardly believe that will matter." He held up the spoons in his hands, and clacked them together. Immediately, the colors in the room began to blend and eventually formed themselves into Something Completely Different.

Grays of multiple shades positioned themselves into long, thick poles on either side of Caro, Kris, Cyrus, and Tajiri (who was looking around silently, even drumming his fingers on the side of his leg). Some trickled down to the floor and melted into a faded marble, milky dull white mixed with swirls of gray and brown. Darker browns filled the empty space left by the other colors, as a giant stretch of blue flung itself across the 'ceiling'.

"Teleport," Tajiri said smugly. "Very pretty, don't you think?" He looked around the huge cavern with the smug expression still longering in his eyes. Cracked (and intact) Grecian pillars stuck up from the floor, and boulders were scattered around a slab of marble stretching across the floor. A couple of stone arches were placed near the back.

"This is complete overkill." Cyrus looked around. The Spear Pillar had not changed. "I agree with you on that one," Tajiri noted, "but I'm just following orders. Farewell." With that, he turned around and walked out of the open-roofed cavern and into the corridor beyond. "I am finished here." Tajiri teleported away with a wave.

"Wait a second." For once, it was Caro who thought of something first. "Isn't this the… er… Spear Pillar? Isn't this the place where-" He stopped abruptly.

Cyrus nodded. "Yes, it is." _This is getting ridiculous…_ His thoughts were interrupted by the sudden swooping of something going at a downward angle very, very fast.

Instinctively, Cyrus jerked to the left. Kris pulled Caro to the right to make way for the buzzing projectile.

A flash of black and yellow shot past him, and the Beedrill landed on a nearby pillar. It scuttled around with its spindly, navy blue legs, and leered at them making full use of the large and dangerous spikes on its front legs and black-and-yellow striped abdomen. It had unblinking red eyes, and two slightly translucent wings jerked and twitched quickly.

It said only three words, before falling silent: "Here she comes."

It turned its head and skulked backwards onto another pillar as an area above the entrance to the Spear Pillar began to distort itself.

First the colors simply got blurrier, but then new ones replaced them. It started with a magenta pink, arranging itself in what looked like a helmet with four rounded… things sticking out of it. Then, baby blue began to fill out a small body below the pink, shaped like a teardrop with arms and legs. It flowed upwards and finished off the helmet. Near the bottom of the body, two long tails jetted out and ended in what looked something like a spiked club, with a red ovular gem glistening on the left tail.

Just after Mesprit had finished her reappearance, everyone turned around. There was silence for a few seconds, and finally someone spoke.

"Was this really necessary?" Cyrus asked tonelessly. Mesprit nodded cheerfully. "Yep!"

She smiled vacantly like that for a few seconds, and then her face turned to a frown.

"I'm not going to ramble on about my plan in a dreadfully boring monologue like a couple of people I can think of-" she paused- "so I'm just going to cut it short with this: you did something very, very bad. You got a pretty loose punishment for it. And now you're finally going to get what you deserve."

"And how are you proposing that's going to happen?" Cyrus asked, looking calm but feeling vastly different.

Mesprit shrugged. "Ah, nothing big." She said loftily. "I'm just going to use an old plot device of yours to rip your souls out of your bodies, simply because you deserved it. And just because you're a bad person overall…" She shrugged again.

"You do realize that by doing this, you're technically just as evil and violent as I am?" Came the response.

"Yes. I get that. Only difference: I'm just planning on hurting you three. Not blowing up the universe. There's a difference, you see…" Mesprit made a circling gesture with her hand, and the frown twisted into a maniacal smile.

"But the method is almost exactly the same." She removed something scarlet red from the ledge next to her and jangled it casually. Her face lit up in mock surprise as it made a clanking metal sound that echoed all around the room, almost like…

A chain.

Caro and Kris' faces twisted in disbelief, and Cyrus came very close. "And what reason do you have to use the Red Chain to do so?" He asked.

"Because it's more fun." Mesprit grinned. She clearly had planned this out exclusively to use the Chain.

"But of course." He murmured. "More fun."

The enormous Celestial Screening Room way Up There, above the clouds and the rest of the universe going on its merry way below them, was watching with baited breath. The Gardevoir giving the 3D projection stopped to rest (it's hard work, watching something happen a long way below and trying to recreate it using psychic powers) and the Legendaries watching it happen groaned.

"That idiot," Darkrai sighed, putting his head in one hand. He was slouched (villainously – but that's just the way he was) in a chair made of obsidian, with a giant jade – what else? – set in the back. The purple stone shone and glinted in the radiant light coming from… well… everywhere. "Although, I can'y say I never saw this coming."

"That's absolutely ridiculous!" The Arcanine sitting next to Arceus proclaimed. "Oh… sorry, sir…" He inched away a few feet when Arceus glanced at him.

"It is fine," another Arcanine, eyes shining a fiery red, spoke from the other side of Arceus. Remember how Arceus can do just about everything but talk, so he gets an Arcanine to do it instead? This was one of those moments. "I agree with you completely."

"Now how did we not see _that _coming?" Azelf sighed dramatically from his hovering area in the corner. "Cyrus is right – she is making complete overkill on this." Uxie commented softly. He was floating next to her.

"But that is the way Mesprit is. It was bound to happen eventually." He sighed softly. "Mesprit is one of the most mentally unstable creatures in existence," he continued, "and she was bound to crack eventually. With disastrous results."

Entei brought himself from a lying position to a sitting one, his head ultimately reaching Uxie's body. Entei was a four-legged, gray-pawed creature, covered almost completely in chocolate-brown fur (save for a stripe of cream down his stomach).He wore a multi-layered mask over his snouted face, first with three red spikes on his forehead and one at a downwards angle. Next was a three-pointed yellow piece fixed in his forehead, shielding his eyes. Lastly, a silver thing covering his nose with a spike sticking down on either side.

His paws were gray and broad, with a thick metal ring secured on each one. Overall, a large and imposing dog that looked like it could – scratch that, was able to – breathe fire.

"I suppose you're right," he said in a low, rumbling voice. "She was the embodiment of emotion… Emotion is a terribly shaky part of living creatures. How fitting that she should be out to destroy Cyrus… they're complete opposites." His gaze turned to Palkia. "Was this done on purpose?"

Palkia made a face of mock surprise. "Who, me? Why would I do something like this? Nothing I do is important enough to watch in the Celestial Screening Room."

"The founding of the Pokemon League. The Sootopolis City Incident. Mewtwo's creation." Entei hesitated, and then spat out the last example as if it was painful to say.

"Ash Ketchum." The tone in the room got darker than it already was, somehow, as its contents gave a unanimous shudder.

Palkia looked away. "It was a joke," he said meekly. "Shaymin made me do it."

Shaymin wasn't paying attention, even when Palkia said her name. "Does Mesprit know what she is doing? It does not look like it, to me." The glowy-eyed Arcanine shook his fur-covered head. "No," he said. "Her common sense has been silenced by her rage."

The Gardevoir coughed, and everyone looked back to the wisps of light that were beginning to form a scene.


	17. The Road Ends Here

The Road Ends Here

Chapter Seventeen

Uxie was correct. Mesprit is probably - scratch that, definitely - the most mentally unstable being in existence, and she was bound to do something like this eventually. And, knowing Mesprit, it would be done with a ridiculously big bang…

"Well… I really don't want to monologue evilly for you, but I still want you to leave this world with some answers. So after we get you three accommodated, interrogation may begin…" Mesprit got up from her position and looked down over the edge of her ledge-seat, into the cavern below. "Release the guards!" She chirped.

A new voice spoke, shrouded in the shadow of the corridor. "Honchkrow, use Embargo on the boy and girl. Machamp, make sure that Mr. Brilliant over here is comfortable."

_Mister Brilliant? _Cyrus thought. _There is only one person with enough nerve to call me that. But she couldn't have…_

Almost immediately, luminous purple orbs of energy shot out of the corridor and began to circle Caro and Kris, acting like a barrier or one of those sci-fi force field traps. Meanwhile, a Machamp lunged out and, dodging the Embargo, grabbed Cyrus by the arms.

"And what do you expect Embargo is going to do? All it does is make the target incapable of receiving help from items." Cyrus said, not bothering to kick the Machamp – it would probably grab on to his legs as well, and that would be even worse.

"On Pokemon, yes." Mesprit nodded. "In that case, you're right. For humans, who are entirely different as a species, an Embargo acts as a paralyzer that prevents you from moving the body below your neck until the Embargo is lifted. And I don't think our friend here is going to lift it any time soon." She looked down to the tunnel's entrance again. "Come in, Yami."

A woman stepped out of the shadow, and bowed slightly. She didn't seem to be much in the way of wardrobe options – a black shirt and pants, covered by a long, billowing trenchcoat that was considerably tattered and ripped. Her wide-brimmed Murkrowesque hat hid her face, but that didn't stop her from putting on dark sunglasses. Almost as if she wanted to hide her eyes… hm. She had a tall, thin frame, and pale skin. Her hair was black and flowed down past her shoulders, forming into thick spikes at the bottom. Her stance had just a hint of a slouch, and the automatic place for her hands seemed to be in the pockets of her trenchcoat. She stared at the trio with a flat, almost bored expression on her face.

"Hello, people." She gave a wry smile.

Mesprit looked down to her and called, "Hey, want to get up here? It's way more fun." Kris grimaced.

"No, no. That's alright, Mesprit. I'm fine down here. It looks so much better when the good parts come." Yami shrugged.

"Suit yourself. Any questions?" Mesprit turned her attention back to the three hostages, tilting her head ever so slightly.

"Here's one," Kris practically shouted, "why are you trying to kill Caro and I, too? Isn't it just him you want?" She inclined with her head towards Cyrus, still being held in the air by Machamp.

Mesprit's eyes lit up. She had expected this one. "Why am I taking you two, as well? Well, there are two reasons: One, you two are witnessing it and therefore must be dealt with, and two, it's more fun." She beamed. This thing really had gone crazy.

"I'm beginning to get pretty tired of that excuse." Kris spat. The Embargo around her tightened.

"Oh, yes." Mesprit chirped. "Did I mention Embargoes can also squeeze the life out of you?"

She was saying all of this with a completely optimistic tone, making it that much easier to get very, very mad at her. This was supposed to be an epic finale – Kris and Caro are paralyzed from the waist down, Cyrus is being hung from his hands by a giant Machamp, who apparently belongs to someone he knows. And Mesprit was totally slaughtering the mood by beaming and speaking in the most pleasant way possible? You'd think she would be a bit more ser- oh, hold on. Never mind.

"Question two." Cyrus spoke again. "What is she doing here?" He inclined to Yami with his head.

"Ah, yes. Yami. Nearly forgot about her, silly me." Mesprit smiled evilly. "You're referring to my assistant over here? I'm sure you must be completely puzzled by why she is so willing to do what I say, and so enraged at you. Let me tell you now – all that rage is totally authentic. I didn't put in any of it. Deep inside that bottle of hers, she really, _really _hates you. Couldn't imagine why…" Mesprit laughed. "I just messed with her loyalty and self-control a bit… you know, to make the transaction go smoother?"

Kris turned her head to look at Cyrus. "Are you saying that you know this lady?" she asked.

Silence.

"You know, telling us something would seriously help here!" Caro hissed, beginning to get angry.

"There's really no point in telling them," Mesprit's malicious smile stretched further. "I think that we should just let Yami's eyes do the talking, don't you think? Yami, take off your sunglasses."

The woman slunk up to the people being held hostage by her Pokemon. Cyrus couldn't help feeling Machamp's breathing get faster - it wasn't exactly helping his situation. _Bad. Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad. Very bad… _

_Oh Arceus. Why did Mesprit have to bring her?_

She smiled wickedly, and took off her hat and sunglasses. At that point, it was completely apparent why she had done so much to shadow the upper side of her face.

Her eyes were a rather odd gray color that seemed to look right through you sometimes, and other times were just there, not looking like they did anything.

Everyone was silent for a few minutes. Kris was mumbling things under her breath, and Caro kept looking frantically between Cyrus and Yami. After a while of this, he groaned loudly.

"Mesprit! Not cool!" The boy groaned. She nodded proudly.

"Brilliant, eh? They're exactly alike!" Her tone turned darker again. "Alright. Now that we have that all taken care of, we can start the summoning, yeah?" Everyone turned up to look at her.

"Summoning?" Kris shouted. "Summoning _who?"_

Mesprit laughed maliciously. "Oh, you know." She lowered her head ominously, so that the shadow went farther down her face and obscured her eyes. She got up and floated a few feet above her perch above the door, and then spoke. "Nobody special…"

"Just an old _plot device _of yours." Mesprit jangled the Chain again, as Yami smiled.

"Nice quote," she said.

"Thank you." Mesprit smiled genuinely at her for a second, before her face twisted back to its now-usual malevolence. "GIRATINA!" She shouted as she flew over their heads. The Embargoes holding Caro and Kris flung them around gracelessly, and Machamp turned in much the same manner. "YOU MAY COME OUT NOW!"

Black drops began to bleed out in the center of the room, eventually being filled by a larger hole. It grew bigger and bigger, soon swelling to such a size that it stretched from almost one side of the walkway on which it rested to the other. Two red pricks of light appeared in the middle of the inky blackness, and from it raised a huge tower of shadow with six luminous red spikes drumming against each other, three on each side, in the center. It soon became apparent that the pricks of light were meant to be eyes.

It was happening exactly as Cyrus - and Mesprit - remembered it.

The red spikes stopped drumming and flung themselves outwards, where they suddenly revealed themselves to be claws of some sort on a giant set of… well… paws. But, you know, that's just the way Origiratina rolls. The shadow reared up like a giant serpent, and it spread out its claw-things menacingly...

(It should be noted that Cyrus was still keeping a blank face – however, he was shaking violently and breathing unevenly. You didn't honestly expect him to stare into space through this _entire thing,_ did you?)

And Origiratina stayed there. No pouncing on anyone this time, thank Arceus for that. It just stood there, waiting for Mesprit to give it orders. It began to move the claws, bringing them out of their ominous rearing position, and did the most amazing thing – Origiratina crossed them. It glowered at Cyrus, black paws crossed, and its glowing eyes narrowed.

"Hello." It spat in a cold, echoing tone.

"Yes, yes, I'm sure you're quite eager to start the reunion." Mesprit nodded understandingly, and floated up right next to Origiratina, much to his annoyance. "But try to act as imposing as you possibly can. It's way, way more fun." She nodded at Origiratina, who nodded back. Kris' grimace deepened.

"Really?" He said, after pausing to think it over. "That sounds interesting. All right… hold on; let me get in character…" He took a deep breath, and reared back even further, as if he were about to unleash a giant Flamethrower.

"GROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOhoooooooooOOOOOOOOOOH!"

"Alright, that's better. Sayonara, loonies!" Origiratina, still cloaked in shadow, stretched up out of the wormhole to such an extent that he was barely touching it, and reared his shadowy claws again.

"And now!" Mesprit cheered. "Now, all will end. And all will begin... for you three, anyway. Gyahahahaha!"

With one fell swipe, Origiratina brought the great lob of shadow down.

It swung towards the trio like a giant pendulum (with glowing red spikes for added effect). The Machamp was hastily called back into its Pokeball, flinging his hostage to the floor, and the Embargo lifted, just before the shadow-claw reached the three defenseless humans thrust to the ground. For some reason, maybe Cyrus' brain working in overdrive to analyze the situation, something Yami whispered rang in his ears loud and clear:

"See you never, bro…"

And all was white.


	18. So Long, and Thanks for Nothing

So Long, and Thanks for… well… Nothing.

Chapter Eighteen

This is, by no means, the end of the story. Arceus, no. I left you in just about the biggest cliffhanger in history – something has to happen to the three victims of Mesprit's lunacy, right? Well, something _did_. Rest assured, kids…

Three figures were lying on empty space.

It was almost as if an invisible floor was the only thing stopping the unconscious humans from falling into an endless spiral of white nothingness, the only thing keeping them up. All three were out cold – until one, a young boy with a bizarre brown ponytail of a haircut, brought himself to his knees.

The boy was breathing rapidly as his mind tried to recall what had happened a few minutes ago. He looked down at himself, and shook his head. An orange shirt, two brown stripes slashed across the back. Ripped blue jeans. Brown shoes. Caro could hardly believe this was even possible, much less happen to him. But since he had met Helio, all thoughts of being remotely normal were flung out the hypothetical window.

And Arceus only knows how this insanity replaced it.

He shifted his gaze over the white nothingness. He stood up. Too fast, apparently, as a headache began to pound in his ears. He looked over the two other figures lying around him – a blond-headed girl and a man with slightly creepy steel-blue hairspikes. Caro sat down and put his head in his hands.

He quickly straightened himself out as his ears picked up sound vibrations – music was playing. Somehow, someway, there was music playing.

The music got louder. And louder. Eventually, Kris came to, but quickly regretted it and put her hands over her ears. Her blond hair fell down to around her shoulderblades, and she was wearing a cream shirt. Her white pants were in much the same condition as Caro's, as were the white sneakers she wore. She went over to inspect Cyrus. Much to her surprise, she walked over to him only to find that his eyes were, in fact, open. He had been lying there silently, unmoving.

The music, thankfully, began to get softer. Caro sighed with relief.

"That was good music, once you got past the volume, wasn't it?" Kris noted. Caro rolled his eyes.

"Only Kris would comment on how pretty a piece of music was when it's blasting our eardrums out of our heads." He chuckled.

Cyrus chose this moment to confirm that he was alive. He got up and, finding no place to lean on, put his hands in the pockets of his jacket and looked around. The tall man's face was, as usual, completely emotionless.

"Do you have any idea where we are?" Kris mused.

"I do, in fact." Cyrus said blankly, not turning to look down on Kris but rather continuing to look around. "It seems to me that you two are going home." Kris was silent, but Caro had to say something.

"Wait- what? We're going home? Like, you mean, without you?" Caro pointed at Cyrus.

"No. Judging by the fact that I'm still here, I must be coming with you."

Caro was silent. For once, he looked like he was thinking hard. Or reminiscing. Either one seemed appropriate. The oddly thought-provoking, reflection-inducing music in the background was not helping.

Caro suddenly noticed a bump in Cyrus' jacket. "Hey. Helio." He said. Cyrus glanced down at him. "Can I look in your pocket?"

"No… the only things of interest in there are my Pokeballs."

"Oh, come on! Please?"

"No."

"Pleeeeeease?"

"No."

Caro frowned and walked over to him. Without warning, he shoved his hand in Cyrus' left pocket and kept it there, no matter how hard Cyrus attempted to yank it out. Finally, Caro withdrew his hand holding a small piece of metal.

"What's this?" He said in a cold voice.

Cyrus opened his mouth, but identified the item and closed it again. He did not answer after that. Caro looked at it again, and his eyes widened.

"I'm serious. What is this thing?" He rattled the machine.

Cyrus looked away, and whispered, "A bomb. And don't shake it."

Kris jumped. "WHAT?" She shrieked. "A bomb is… like… you use it to blow up things! And create a big old diversion! Right?"

Silence.

"A bomb." Caro said coldly. "What you're saying here is that we went through Never-Turn-Back and then some, whacked around by a Legendary controlled by another Legendary who's gone mad, met a woman who's eyes look _suspiciously like yours_, been trapped by an Embargo, and been at the mercy of a fluffy little being of love, and you had a BOMB in your pocket the _whole entire time?_"

"That's the general concept, yes."

Caro made an unpleasant-sounding noise halfway between an agitated groan and a roar and flung the bomb over his shoulder. "That was completely stupid of you. How do you forget about a bomb in your pocket?" Caro growled, icy tone still present.

"For the first part of the second Incident-" This was Cyrus' term for what had happened a few chapters ago- "I had about as much of an idea as you did about what was going on. For the second half, I was hanging by my arms in a Machamp's grip. I don't see any bomb-flinging opportunities there. If you do, feel free to sha-" But he was cut short by a deafening noise.

"FOR THE LOVE OF ARCEUS! DO NOT FLING YOUR EXPLOSIVE HUMAN MACHIENERY ANYWHERE NEAR OR IN NEVER-TURN-BACK, WILL YOU?!?" I appeared in front of them, distorting the whiteness.

(It should be noted by now that _yes, _I am the narrator of this story. The only part that was actually in real third person was the prologue… from the first chapter on, it was me watching and narrating on a Word document. That's where all of these side-notes came from.)

"Uh, excuse me for that." I coughed. "First impressions, you know. Important things to consider." I was floating in air, though the huge black wings on my back were not beating. My body was mostly gray and was roughly fifteen feet tall. A black and red stripe went down my stomach and to the spine extension most people call a tail, stretching up my long neck (adorned with extremely cool-looking gold ring-shaped objects that thinned out near the stripe and thickened to the side) and the last black square's color migrated to my head, which was, arguably, even crazier-looking than the rest of my body combined.

The first thing you noticed were the very large, thick spikes that stuck out on both sides and framed the head, with the effect of downturned ears. A crescent-moon shape was slammed in the middle of my forehead, same gold color as the headspikes. Attached to said headspikes were two long, golden horns, which stuck outwards from my head. Bright red eyes gleamed from behind the mask, set out on a dark gray face. I stood on my last pair of legs, giant shadow-wings spread wide.

"I am Guardian Giratina." I nodded its head towards the three people in front of me. Caro and Kris were dumbstruck. Cyrus was looking off into space, as usual.

"And you three are going to…" I returned all six legs to the ground and waved my wing, and a black clipboard with blood-red paper appeared to my right. The clipboard floated over to me as I scanned the paper on it. "Uh-huh… return trip… second time for Cyrus… yes. Okay." The clipboard disappeared.

"Question," Caro spoke. "How are you floating? You're not beating your wings."

"Well, that's an easy one!" I smiled. "You're in Never-Turn-Back! It's the gray area between the Pokemon worlds – and where I'm in charge… I can do anything in here."

Caro gasped. "No you can't!" He said.

"Yes he can," Cyrus replied, still staring off into space.

"He?" I groaned. "I'm a female, in case you hadn't noticed. And yes. I can distort anything in this place, and make anything happen."

"So, that music!" Kris suddenly remembered.

"Yes, I did that too. It's called Un Monde Sans Danger. That means A World without Danger, I think…" I shrugged.

"I still don't believe you," Caro grumbled.

"What? You need more proof? Suit yourself…" I looked around (even though there was nothing that could help me), searching for something that I could use to prove my powers to Caro.

"Okay… let's try a different musical number, then." I thought for a while, swishing her large and shadowy wings around her. I returned to the big blob of white that was my little ground area, and thought. From the deepest depths of my cruel, cruel mind, I came up with something. "Ah! I have an idea."

I spread my wings dramatically, and the sound of thunder crashed in the background… however, the ominous chord was quickly replaced with something a bit more light-hearted.

_We're no strangers to love  
You know the rules and so do I  
A full commitment's what I'm thinking of  
You wouldn't get this from any other guy_

I just wanna tell you how I'm feeling  
Gotta make you understand…

I was roaring with laughter. "You, dear friends, have been Rickrolled!"

Kris was laughing so hard, she needed to sit down; I quickly provided a large and quite comfortable couch so that she didn't crack her skull or something. Caro was performing a glorious facepalm with perfect form, and Cyrus was staring at me blankly. (I'd be willing to bet ten thousand Poke that he didn't get the joke!)

"Can't you do something a little more impressive than that?" Caro asked. I nodded, and took my thinking position again.

"Hair color? No… violent pink background? Nah, I don't like pink…" Finally, my eyes fell on Cyrus. My cruel, cruel mind whirred into motion once more. "Perfect." I chirped. After some brief evil grinning, I spread out her left wing, and Cyrus was raised a few feet into the air. (Yep, his face was still blank.)

"See Cyrus' jacket? Right now, it's the length that it is in most of the media. Most, except for the D-P Adventures manga, where it's less of a jacket and more of-" Cyrus' jacket promptly got longer, stretching down to his knees- "a lab coat. But I personally prefer the way it is in the anime and games, so…" It returned to its original length. As if this were not bad enough, writing appeared to the right of Cyrus' head as if it were being written with a black Sharpie marker, right in midair:

"Not amused." Cyrus certainly fit the description.

"Thank you for being the guinea pig, Cyrus." I chirped. Returning my wing to its usual position, Cyrus unceremoniously fell to the ground again. The writing disappeared a few seconds later.

"Do you believe me now?" I looked at Caro expectantly. He frowned.

"How?" Caro asked.

"Magic." I said quickly.

"Now. According to this here," I waved my wing and the black clipboard appeared again, "you three are headed for Treasure Town. Your reason for departure from the current universe was… oh Arceus." My face fell as I quickly read the paper that had now attached itself to the clipboard. "That must have not ended well."

As I said this, a blotch of blackness began to bleed across the white to their left as if it were paper. "Meh, fails to be you. Anyway, that portal over there's yours. Go through, you three, go through…" I waved my wing again, with no odd side affects this time. Caro and Kris ran for it, but Cyrus took his time to inspect the portal before entering.

"Hey!" I shouted after them. "You might feel a little… tingling sensation, and should go away in a few min-" I stopped yelling a few seconds in, noticing the portal had closed when the words were halfway out of my mouth.

"I don't believe it. She was serious when she said that? But she must have changed her plans… if she did kill those three like she said she would, they would be somewhere else right now…" Giratina shuddered. "I like it so much more here in Never-Turn-Back."

I turned around and spread both wings out in a menacing manner; there appeared a giant television and a laptop on a desk. My wings turned into long, black, human-shape hands, and I waited for the saga to continue. The fanfic section would _love_ this.

The screen flickered to life, and I posed my makeshift hands onto the keyboard…

Three Pokemon woke up.

They were in a cavern, a very standard and ordinary one. The only thing that differenciated it from any other boring cavern in any other boring place was that there was a giant, gaping hole that went from the ceiling all the way up to the sky, where the sun was shining brightly.

Kris looked down at herself and smiled widely. Caro did much the same thing. They got up, ran around the room a few times, and began to do a strange (but extremely energetic) dance. Helio - Cyrus? – watched calmly from the shadows. As the two other Pokemon put on their whooping and screaming and general noises of delight, he couldn't help but notice that faint voices were echoing from the only exit.

"Stop," he told them, "and listen. Someone's coming."

"There's a monster in there!" This voice was high-pitched and squeaky.

"A monster. Really." This other one was extremely gravelly, like the speaker had a sore throat.

"Yeah! I-it was shrieking!" Helio took the opportunity to glare at Kris and Caro, who had stopped dancing like idiots and were completely silent.

"I didn't hear anything."

"Well, I did."

There was one set of pawsteps and a lot of whooshing noises. Kris, Caro, and Helio backed away from the door, farther into the room.

"What is it?" the female voice asked.

"This," the gravelly voice said, "is your monster." Another whooshing noise, and something made of metal flew into the room. Helio aimed a magnet at it and brought the object closer, where he could identify it. Had he had a different philosophy, his eyes would have widened in surprise.

This was one of his screws that had evidently come loose.

Helio silently scolded himself for not remembering to do a check-over as the conversation resumed.

"But… it made a noise," the high-pitched voice whimpered.

"It might have come from a monster of some sort," the gravelly voice continued, "but it has no life force of its own. I'd bet you 500 Poke that this thing came from a Magneton that entered this place not too long ago."

Kris and Caro looked around, and their jaws dropped simultaneously.

This chamber was the very one that had sparked (no pun intended) their lifetime-amount adventure.

"Do you think that came from Helio?" the high-pitched voice asked. Kris and Caro's eyes darted over to the Magneton, who didn't look back at them but stayed perfectly still.

"How should I know?" argued the rocky voice. "Besides, it isn't important anyway. Helio's gone. Dead, probably. So are the other two. There's nothing here –we should take a different route."

It was at this point Helio's gaze slid over to meet the other two Pokemon's scared faces.

Just how long had they been gone?

An Arcanine bounded through Treasure Town. Its broad paws pounded on the cobblestone walkway, not pausing for anything and swerving out of the way of other Pokemon. Everyone who saw him didn't get mad – they were filled with excitement. Arcanines only come when there's important news!

"No!" He kept shouting. "Do not follow me! I have private business!"

He did not stop until he reached a cliff face. Looking down, the Arcanine shuddered. The huge Sharpedo-shaped cliff and the water below made him nervous.

Shaking his head firmly, the Arcanine reminded himself of what he was here to do. Padding over to a large hole, he thumped firmly on the trapdoor over it. Immediately, a Raichu opened the door.

"Hey." He said. "Are you here for anything?"

"Uh… yes. Yes I am." The Arcanine nodded stiffly. "You are Caro, right?"

"Yeah. How come?"

"I have a message for you."

"You don't look like a Pelipper."

"That's because it is not ordinary mail." The Arcanine handed Caro a thick envelope. The Raichu opened it, and his eyes widened.

"This is in Unown runes." He said.

"If I'm not mistaken, that Magneton who is staying with you can read them." The Arcanine said calmly.

"Oh yeah! Hold on a sec," The Raichu nodded and scampered down the stairs. "Oi. Helio!" he shouted from the stairwell into the 'house'. "Can you translate this?" The Raichu waved the letter in Unown runes in one paw. A soft whirring noise came from the hole.

"Where did you get that?" An emotionless, mechanical voice asked.

"Come up here," Caro said, "and I'll show you."

Caro returned to the surface, along with a Magneton floating a few feet behind him. "Hello." He said to the Arcanine in much the same tone.

"Hello." The Arcanine nodded. "There should be a Persian here too."

"That would be me." A cream-colored cat padded up to them from the hole. "What are you here for?" She asked.

"You three were sent to the human world a while ago, were you not?" They all nodded. "After… a quick departure, we were able to recover your bodies. They were, surprisingly enough, completely unharmed. You know what this means, don't you?"

"We can return to the human world if we wish." Helio cut in.

"Precisely. So I need you three to make a choice." The Arcanine nodded. "Do you wish to stay here, or return to the human world?"

Everyone stared at him for a long time.


	19. Aftermath of the Aftermath

_I'll post this on a Friday, just for old times' sake..._

* * *

A lone figure stood on one of the numerous beaches around Sunyshore City, leaning against a cliff face. Anyone who noticed the sunset reflecting off of him would probably recoil immediately. Everyone knew who he was, and nobody liked it.

His hair was short, steel-blue, and in thick hairspikes. He was about as tall as an Arcanine (six feet), and leaned against the rocky cliff with his arms crossed. His face betrayed no emotion whatsoever. He was wearing black pants, and a gray jacket that mostly covered his white shirt. The sleeves on this jacket were black, and there were two gray stripes running around the jacket itself.

These stripes crossed over another pattern – it seemed to be the top half of a round-edged rectangle going around the back and sides of the jacket. A stylized image resembling the letter G was positioned on the jacket, near his left arm. A bigger version of it appeared on the jacket's back. His face was narrow and pale, with protruding cheekbones. His gray, almost lifeless eyes stared ahead, not looking like they were doing anything.

Cyrus was, apparently, lost in thought. He was watching the sun set for no reason other than it was something to _do_.

It had been roughly two months since he'd left Treasure Town for the last time. Without meaning to, he often found mind wandering off to the Persian and Raichu he had first met a good ten years ago. _Such is the effect after having experiences like that, I suppose. _

That wasn't like him – usually people he no longer knew faded out of his mind, never to return. The exception to this rule being his sister, of course, and now Kris and Caro.

He was left thinking about this until the sound of talking reached his ears. Immediately, Cyrus became aware of the present universe (which he had recently decided that he could live with) again. Those voices sounded familiar.

As the voices got louder and eventually stopped, he glanced upwards.

A couple of teenage children were grinning at him from on top of the cliff. One of them was a boy, brown hair in a short ponytail, the other a girl with longer, blonde hair. They got up and scrambled down a natural ramp a little ways away, going as quickly as they could on the rocky surface without getting seriously hurt.

"Oi! Helio!" Caro shouted as they scrambled down the beach, eventually skidding to a halt in front of him. "We missed you. A lot."

"And being in Treasure Town was a pain anyway." Kris frowned. "Everyone kept commenting about where we were and where that old Alakazam in the corner of town went."

"We told them he transported himself to a different universe to follow under a lunatic Mesprit," Caro laughed. "They didn't believe us. So we came here."

"And how did you do that?" Cyrus asked.

"Somehow the Legendaries knew we didn't really want to be in Treasure Town anymore and they sent another Arcanine." Kris replied.

A lone pink and blue figure observed the reunion from the Celestial Screening Room. When the girl spoke, Mesprit smiled – a genuine, real, happy smile – and wrapped her tails about her, letting the 'film' continue as stars continued to sparkle on the dark walls.

Twenty minutes later, the most absurd traveling group in the history of serious fanfiction were all sitting on the cliff face on which Caro and Kris were perched earlier.

"Well, that was fun." Caro sighed. "I can't _wait_ until Giratina snaps."

Kris then took the opportunity to make an odd slashing motion on Caro's arm. He yelped in surprise, and Kris did too as her slashing arm twitched violently for a second. Caro quickly put his hand over his hurt arm and turned away.

"Ow! Ow, Kris, that hurt _really badly!_"

"Oh, come on." Kris groaned. "I only scratched your ski-" She was in the middle of raising her hand to her forehead, but stopped abruptly. "What the- I can't move my fingers!" Sure enough, her hand was still stuck in the odd slashing motion. There was also a bit of ash on it that hadn't been there before.

"What the- there's ash on it too? What happened?" The girl asked nobody in particular. Cyrus got up and walked around them to look at Caro's arm.

"Somehow, you managed to make a deep cut in his arm." Cyrus noted flatly. "Also, there are only four slash marks."

Kris got up and walked over. "Ugh, now my arm is tingling too…" she shook it angrily, and Cyrus turned to her. At this point, a normal person would have a look somewhere between confusion and doubt on his face… but this was Cyrus we're talking about, so it was the same stoic expression.

"Wait a second!" Caro blurted out, just as Cyrus opened his mouth to speak. "If I got a four-clawed cut on my arm, and Kris' hand randomly paralyzed itself, then-" he stopped soon after he said the word 'paralyzed'. He then repeated it for a minute or two. "Paralyzed… paralyzed…"

"Wait…" he whispered, looking at his cut again. "These slash marks are the exact same as a Persian would make… and if your arm doesn't move, then it's technically paralyzed and… well, if you can do that, Kris, that means that Helio and I can-" He was cut off again as a literal shock coursed through his body.

"…conduct electricity." Cyrus finished, still standing behind Caro.

Frowning, Caro tried to zap Cyrus, but the only thing that actually happened was him flinging his hand out in a dramatic manner.

"What?" He groaned. "What happened to my electricity?"

At that point, a gust of wind passed over all of them. With it, a voice (that sounded oddly like Giratina) came with it: "I told you already - it's a temporary side-effect!"

Mesprit sat alone in the Celestial Screening Room.

She was watching these three make their sappy reunion for lack of anything better to do; Zapdos had gotten so mad at Raikou for beating it at a thunder-striking contest that it had zapped a giant hole. Unfortunately, this giant hole happened to be in the generator that made Up There do all of it's magical things (i.e., Arceus). This didn't end well, as a nearby possessed Arcanine was quick to explain. Violently.

Unfortunately, while Mesprit was looking for the bathroom (she was barely ever up here and didn't really know her way around) she had entered the Celestial Screening Room when Arceus locked all the doors. So she figured she might as well watch something… and these freaks came on. She _tried _to find something else, but apparently the rest of the universe was doing very boring things.

However, as she watched the reunion and Giratina's little note, she began to calm down again.

Because she was so calm, when the three down below all cracked simultaneous wide smiles and started laughing, she did too.

Because endings just always seem to happen that way…

* * *

_Thanks, all of you, for reading this. (Yes, Farla, that means you.) And now, without any further delay, I can with great pleasure finally type this..._

**_Metal Coat; END_**


End file.
